Investigating Portugueseness: Reflections on Recent Ethnographic Approaches

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The works under consideration in this essay all explore identi- ties, relationships, and ways of life that have intersected, in one way or another, with Portugal's intertwined history of emigration, empire, and nation-making. Two of them—Portuguese Women in Toronto: Gender, Immigration, and Nationalism, by Wenona Giles, and The Portuguese in Canada: From the Sea to the City, edited by Carlos Teixeira and Victor M.P. Da Rosa—focus on a relatively recent component of Portugal's diaspora. The other two—D'Albu- querque's Children: Performing Tradition in Malaysia's Portuguese Settlement, by Margaret Sarkissian, and Brazilians in Portugal, Portuguese in Brazil: Constructions of Sameness and Difference, by Bela Feldman-Bianco—explore contemporary manifestations of Portugal's history as a colonial power. In this discussion, I reflect on how the authors approach agendas central to contemporary notions of how culture, and more specifi- cally, identity, works. The theoretical positions I am about to lay out are widely shared amongst present-day ethnographers, includ- ing, I would venture to say, those whose work is the focus of the following discussion. However, the ways in which these authors deal with this set of issues in their accounts of Portugueseness xxxxxxxxxxxx 277