Presentation
In an increasingly interconnected world, the circulation of people, things, and ideas shapes everyday life in profound ways. Our research group explores how mobility — and its counterpart, immobility — influence the ways individuals and communities create, experience, and imagine places of belonging.
We study diverse forms of movement, from international migration and transnational networks to tourism, pilgrimage, and temporary mobility. At the same time, we pay attention to what happens when movement is restricted — through borders, bureaucracies, or claims to native and territorial identities. Our work also considers how the legacies of colonial and postcolonial histories continue to shape contemporary patterns of travel, displacement, settlement, and cultural exchange, influencing who moves, why, how, and under what conditions.
By looking at these dynamics together, we seek to understand how diverse forms of (im)mobility transform societies, cultures, relationships, and senses of home and place.
Our work addresses key research questions such as:
● How do people make and remake places and identities through movement and settlement?
● In what ways do mobility and immobility shape social relations, collective identities, and power dynamics?
● How do identity markers such as religion, race, ethnicity, class, nationality, gender, and sexuality shape and are shaped by circulation across borders?
● What roles do heritage, memory, and imagination play in connecting people to different places and times — both near and far?
● How do hate, xenophobia, racism, and exclusion unfold and how are they experienced and contested in transnational contexts of increasing diversity and displacement?
Our research spans multiple regions, with a special focus on Portugal and the Portuguese-speaking world (notably Brazil), as well as North America, the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.
Through the lens of place-making and belonging, we seek to contribute to broader anthropological debates about contemporary social transformations — including migration, colonial and postcolonial legacies, heritage, and religious diversity.
We collaborate closely with other thematic lines and research groups within CRIA to promote a nuanced understanding of how people move, stay, remember, and create meaning in a world where place itself is constantly being redefined and reimagined.
