Portuguese Journal of Social Science - Volume 16, Issue 2, 2017

The Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie [VOC]) set up a judicial forum of European and native officials called the Landraad in parts of early modern Sri Lanka. Its primary tasks were to hear certain civil cases and maintain the thombo (land register). The VOC wished to define who could do what in which piece of land and what it could extract in return. This article is a study of land rights in southern Sri Lanka, providing quantitative and qualitative evidence on the types of possession recognized by the VOC. Officials used local terms relating to land tenure in the thombo, the Landraad and other discussions. The thombo and the Landraad were in effect the legal mechanisms by which the conversion of land, whether collectively or individually held, into alienable title was sought to be consolidated. Despite the complexities of the local land tenure system, the VOC attempted to enforce rules and regulations that would create a neat, circumscribed system that followed specific legal procedures and written forms. This was not always achieved in practice, indicating the important yet discreet role played by peasants in defining land rights.

Property rights regimes governing the expansion of agricultural commodity exports in the tropics have varied widely between and within colonial empires. This article illustrates this diversity within the British Empire from about 1850 to 1920. In British West Africa, indigenous customary rights were recognized and land concessions to plantations excluded. By contrast, colonial governments alienated large land tracts for plantations in Malaya, the Indian Hills and Ceylon that often conflicted with indigenous rights and shifting farming systems in upland forested areas. These differences among colonial policies on land and forest rights in turn led to quite different agrarian structures and strongly influenced the location of export production – differences that have persisted until today. The article explores a range of explanations for policy divergence with respect to land rights, including the initial conditions of population density and pre-existing industries, strategic concerns of the metropolitan power, growing civil society agitation on human rights in Africa, the role of individual champions of human rights and shifting paradigms within the empire with respect to the role of plantations.

Part of a broader effort to bring the land question to the fore of scholarship about colonial Mozambique, this article looks at how legal colonial thought about land and property, part of the growing body of knowledge about topics of interest to the colonies, developed among Portuguese colonialists in the early twentieth century, especially with regard to African access to land. Different contributions to this thought will be analysed to enquire the role the land question played in the Portuguese colonial project in Africa. The main theories and debates about the land question held in Portugal will then be analysed alongside theories and debates about this same topic within an increasingly internationalized field of colonial thought, in which Portuguese colonialists also took part.

The main goal of this article is to present the challenges for Portuguese colonial policy during the First Republic (1910–26), focusing on the international pressures against the survival of the Portuguese Empire. The article is divided into three parts: in the first we outline the state of the art regarding the questions to be raised. This is followed by an analysis of Portuguese colonial policy in the post-Versailles international context, particularly Afonso Costa’s negotiations for war reparations. In the third part, we examine particular aspects of the relationship between Portugal and the League of Nations in relation to colonial questions: namely, forced labour and the illicit trafficking of opium.

The article discusses some of the major changes in Portuguese schools, due to both the external evaluation process set up in 2008 and the new school management model. The results discussed here demonstrate how the external evaluation process in Portugal highlights the importance of schools as organizations and the focus on community involvement in school management. A multivariate analysis based on a set of variables enabled us to define three school organization profiles (innovative, traditional and diffuse) using two points of reference: the type of curriculum offered and the relationship with the school community. The article consolidates an analysis based on mixed-method research, enhancing the analysis of qualitative information, how qualitative information can be turned into quantified variables, and how data reducing provides support for quantitative and qualitative data analysis.

This article presents an analysis of public policies implemented in Portugal between 2008 and 2013 affecting the older segments of the population, specifically those aged 50 years and over. Research on this period is relevant because it was a time of economic and financial crisis and concomitant changes in government policy. By making a content analysis of the laws published on the website of the Diário da República (Portuguese State Gazette) three periods could be distinguished: January 2008 to May 2010, which was dominated by an emancipatory logic reflecting respect for social rights; June 2010 to September 2012; and then October 2012 to December 2013, in which a logic of austerity prevailed, especially in the last period, with negative consequences for the quality of life of senior citizens.

The consolidation of the welfare state that took place after the 1974 revolution, particularly in the 1980s, improved the living standards of Portuguese citizens. The improvements were directly reflected in Portuguese Cigano families and individuals, although the great majority remain at high risk of poverty. In 2011 the European Council proposed the definition of national strategies for integration of Ciganos, opening the door for achieving better living conditions of European Roma citizens. The national strategies focus on four fundamental domains: education, employment, healthcare and housing. At the present time, Portugal is implementing its National Strategy for the Integration of Cigano Communities. In terms of education, compared to previous generations, Cigano children complete more years of education. However, after the fifth and sixth year of schooling, the number of Cigano children dropping out of formal education increases. Based on a literature review and a survey of policies, programmes and projects, and the analysis of interviews with individual and institutional stakeholders, the aim of this article is to present results of a research project that intends to identify key factors for the success and continuity of Cigano schooling paths.

Rethinking Fascism and Dictatorship in Europe, António Costa Pinto and Aristotle Kallis (eds) (2015) London: Palgrave, 317 pp., ISBN: 9781137384409, h/bk, $95.00; ISBN: 9781349480883, p/bk, $39.99; ISBN: 9781137384416, eBook, $74.99