Emigração e subversão da ordem: : o exercício do ‘direito de fuga’ no Estado Novo português

Abstract

This article analyses a phenomenon often neglected inthe scholarship on the Carnation Revolution and the fall of the Portuguese dictatorship in Portugal: the emigration. Far from being a novelty inaugurated underthe Estado Novo, the departure of Portuguese citizens to foreign countries reached unprecedent levels in the 1960´s and 1970´s. Thousands of people left the country in defiance laws, thereby openly exposing the regime’s paradoxes as well as their dissatisfaction with living conditions in Portugal and with the continuation of the war in the African colonies. The strategies previously put in place to contain these disruptive and inconvenient emigrants were no longer sufficient to stem an exodus that subverted the Salazarist order and evolved into a social movement, contributing to the erosion of an obsolete regime. Drawing on Bourdieu and Sayad’s reflections on the inconvenience caused by migrants, as well as on the notion of the ‘right to escape’ developed by Mezzadra, this article seeks to (i) examine how the Salazarist regime perceived emigrants in light of the problems they posed; (ii) analyze how Portuguese authorities attempted to minimize the inconveniences caused by emigration; (iii) explore how these individuals rejected the place assigned to them; and (iv) observe the social movement constituted by emigration, which laid bare the paradoxes of Estado Novo. The article draws on sources produced by and within the regime, collected at the Portuguese National Archive of Torre do Tombo; in the Historical Diplomatic Archive and at the Portuguese National Library.