On November 21, at 11.30 am, in room 202 of CP3, the third open class on “Themes and problems in Social History” will take place. This third session is dedicated to the theme “Studying intermediate groups in the modern period in Portugal: challenges, sources, methodologies”, and it will be hosted by Andreia Durães from the University of Minho.
For a long time, Portuguese historiography was polarised around the study of elites and popular groups, with limited attention given to segments of the population falling outside these two distinct categories. However, particularly in recent decades, various works have aimed to address this historiographical void. Many of these studies have focused on specific elites that could be included in this broad and heterogeneous segment of society (Sá, 2023), such as wholesale merchants or traders (Pedreira, 1995) and the legal professions (Subtil, 1995 and 2010; Camarinhas, 2010). In our analysis of intermediate groups, we adopted a comprehensive approach, emphasising the issues of taxonomies and social classifications, their wealth levels and composition and, notably, their consumption habits to gauge evidence of a social identity linked to these groups (Durães, 2013; 2018). Given the impossibility of addressing all these aspects exhaustively, we will particularly delve into the issue of taxonomies and social classifications.
©Universidade do Minho. Todos os direitos reservados. Com apoio do FCT.
