Emigration, Immigration and Interculturality: The Meaning of the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue in Portugal
Emigration, Immigration and Interculturality: The Meaning of the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue in Portugal

Summary/Abstract: Owing to its colonial past, Portugal has been confronted for centuries with cultural otherness. From the Age of the Overseas Discoveries until the end of the colonial empire in Africa in 1975, Portugal's policy, economy and culture were orientated towards the overseas colonies. Due to this and to the huge emigration during the 1960s and 1970s to European industrial countries, Portugal has been considered to be traditionally an emigration country. The lost of the colonies in Africa, the re-centralisation and the joining of the European Union brought to Portuguese society a rapid change. Portugal was no longer only an emigration country. It also became the destination of some thousands of immigrants, coming especially from Eastern Europe, Africa, and Brazil. Within this context, the Emigration Museum in Fafe seeks to keep alive the memory of emigration in Portuguese society, bearing in mind that the consciousness of having been an emigration country contributes to a better understanding of immigration intra muros. The activities of the museum during the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue (2008) give an example of this social mission of mediating between the experience of emigration and immigration.

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