Lusófona University Researcher Organises Tribute Session at the National Library

Patrícia Ferraz de Matos, anthropologist and integrated researcher at CeiED – Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Education and Development at Lusófona University, organised a tribute session dedicated to José Manuel Sobral on 25 March, at the National Library of Portugal.

A retired researcher from the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon, José Manuel Sobral is a key figure in the Portuguese scientific and intellectual landscape. A historian and anthropologist, he developed his career at the University of Lisbon, having been affiliated with the Faculty of Arts and the Institute of Social Sciences, where he actively participated in research projects and governance bodies. He also served as editor of the journal Análise Social and president of the Portuguese Association of Anthropology.

The tribute session included a series of round tables bringing together researchers who were supervised by José Manuel Sobral at master’s, doctoral and post-doctoral level, as well as academics with whom he maintained close intellectual collaboration. Through testimonies and personal recollections, participants revisited some of his main scientific, intellectual and human contributions.

The programme included the participation of specialists in the study of 20th-century Portuguese society, who evoked first-hand accounts of key moments in Portugal’s recent history, before and after 25 April 1974. Topics addressed included work within the Atlas of the Linguistic-Ethnographic of Portugal and Galicia, as well as studies on rural society, kinship, social reproduction, nationalism, heritage and food practices.

This initiative reinforced Lusófona University’s role in fostering academic and scientific debate, promoting encounters between researchers and valuing leading figures in the social sciences.

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