Migracoes e Etnicidade em terrenos portugueses Guineenses: Estrategias de invencao de uma comunidade

This is an anthropological study of an ethnic community established by Guineans who moved to Portugal from an olden Portuguese colony, the Guinea-Bissau. The analyses focus on migration and ethnicity and explore dimensions of identity and culture within the constructionist framework. The methodology is based on statistical data, ethnographic fieldwork, qualitative interviews, a test to measure the simbolization of the group origin (answers to "who am I"). The snowball sampling revealed the social networks which support the migration movements, the community life, and the bonding with the mother land. The results confirm the hypothesis that Guineans organize a community, construct an identity, and produce a culture, through negotiating and renovating primordial and instrumental fragments. They perform a modern community model, based on common cultural symbols and practices, on a sense of belonging which reproduced on several social representations, and on the invention of unity strategies. These aspects are clearly noticed on different levels and degrees of group organization, yet either they all know each other or non the community experience equally expressed in all aspects of their lifeAvailable from Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia, Servico de Informacao e Documentacao, Av. D. Carlos I, 126, 1249-074 Lisboa, Portugal / FCT - Fundação para o Ciência e a TecnologiaSIGLEPTPortuga