Internationalization, 1995 to the Present Day

This chapter discusses the current phase of development of sociology in Portugal as one characterized by internationalization. Internationalization is here understood to refer both to a stage of development and to the challenge involved in making use of key sociological ideas and instruments within a changing institutional setting. Unlike the phases previously discussed, internationalization is a global phenomenon that has impacted sociology in Portugal from abroad. Hence, while most of the challenges discussed here are common to other national sociologies, the responses that Portuguese sociologists and institutions have articulated are relatively specific. One outstanding feature is the expanded notion of Portuguese society that sociologists have been elaborating since the 1990s. If nowadays ‘societies’ are less and less equated with ‘territorial nation-states’, in the Portuguese case, as in other post-imperial Western countries, this has entailed a critical re-examination of the (culturally traumatic) colonial experience.