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Although the post-colonial situation has attracted considerable interest over recent years, one important colonial power - Portugal - has not been given any attention. This book is the first to explore notions of ethnicity, race, culture, and nation in the context of the debate on colonialism and postcolonialism. The structure of the book reflects a trajectory of research, starting with a case study in Trinidad, followed by another one in Brazil, and ending with yet another one in Portugal. The three case studies, written in the ethnographic genre, are intertwined with essays of a more theoretical nature. The non-monographic, composite - or hybrid - nature of this work may be in itself an indication of the need for transnational and historically grounded research when dealing with issues of representations of identity that were constructed during colonial times and that are today reconfigured in the ideological struggles over cultural meanings.

Miguel Vale de Almeida is lecturer of Anthropology at I.S.C.T.E., Lisbon. He is also a political and social activist in Portugal, and a fiction writer.