Um projeto coordenado pela Universidade de Aveiro (UA) que tem vindo a ser desenvolvido com investigadores das universidades de Lisboa (Instituto Superior de Agronomia), de Coimbra e de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, encontrou evidências de profundas transformações na forma como o rural é representado, em Portugal, ao longo dos últimos 30 anos. O trabalho realizado até agora, com base na análise de conteúdo de um grande número de documentos, confirmou, através da produção de evidência empírica consistente, as mudanças já identificadas em outros estudos.

Read more at UA Online (Portuguese).

In the last three months, three books related to the rural areas were edited or contributed to by members of the Rural Matters team:

• Silva, L. & Figueiredo, E. (eds.) Shaping Rural Areas in Europe: Perceptions and Outcomes on the Present and the Future (Springer). Amazon

• Figueiredo, E. & Raschi, A. (eds.) Fertile Links? Connections between tourism activities, socieconomic context and local development in European rural areas (Firenze University Press). Google Books

• Kozak, M. & Kozak, N. (eds.) Tourism Research: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (Cambridge Scholars Publishing) Amazon (includes a chapter by Elisabete Figueiredo: More than Food? Promoting the Countryside to Tourists using Local Food Productions in Italy)

The University of Évora will host the VIII Portuguese Sociology Congress next April 2014 (14-16th), under the motto 40 years of democracy(ies): progresses, contradictions and prospects.

The call for abstracts for all the thematic sections is now open until next October 6th. The list of the different thematic areas, as well as the details about each area, is available here.

For further info about the Congress, please visit its website (English version available).