Miguel Vale de Almeida

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Miguel Vale de Almeida visits San Francisco

Miguel de Matos Castanheira do Vale de Almeida (born August 21, 1960 in Lisbon , Portugal ) is a Portuguese anthropologist , university professor, writer, politician and LGBT activist.

He is the best-known LGBT activist in Portugal who campaigns for gay rights and full same-sex marriage in Portugal and other countries.

His work as an anthropologist tackles the question of the body, sexuality and homosexuality in Portugal and the lusophone countries, but at the same time poses the scientific question of what is homosexuality in the world, which he philosophically investigates. This also makes him one of the great philosophical LGBT activists in Europe.

Live and act

Vale de Almeida studied anthropology at the Universidade Nova in Lisbon from 1979 to 1983 . His interest in this subject is shaped by his interest in people in general and in men in particular. Anthropology would give him the opportunity to research and at the same time publish in his field without arousing suspicion. From 1984 to 1986 he continued his studies at State University in New York . From 1986 he worked at the university as a research assistant for anthropology before he completed his habilitation in 1994 and was appointed full professor of social anthropology at the University of Lisbon .

For the Socialist Party of Portugal PS , he was a member of the Portuguese Parliament for two years (2009 to 2011). There, too, he campaigned for the rights of homosexual people. There he worked on the commissions for freedom and justice, ethics , culture, society and the reform of the Portuguese constitution .

He is the editor-in-chief of the magazine " Etnografia ", the specialist magazine for ethnologists and anthropologists in Portugal. He was also President of the Association of Portuguese Anthropologists from 2002 to 2006 and has remained a member of the association since his abdication. He is also a member of the European Association of Anthropologists, the American Anthropological Society and the Royal Anthropogical Institute in London.

In addition to his native Portuguese, Vale de Almeida speaks fluent English, Spanish, French and Italian. Vale de Almeida is openly gay.

research

As a scientist, his research deals almost exclusively with the topic of homosexuality, which is examined in the context of human behavior, social differences and different ethnic groups. His research focus is also on Portugal, Brazil and the African diaspora in Portugal. He is the first Portuguese scientist to deal extensively with this topic; For centuries, homosexuality was a stepchild of science and culture in Portugal, suppressed by the strong dominance of the church and the repressive state systems. Vale de Almeida succeeds for the first time in eliminating this fear and in some cases closing huge gaps in Portuguese homosexual research. Thematically, it is gender , sexuality , body, race, ethnopolitics, postcolonialism and homosexuality, homosexuality in the Creole cultures, that preoccupy him the most. His work has not yet been translated into German.

Vale de Almeida has published hundreds of articles on this subject in Portuguese specialist magazines, newspapers, magazines. Also in foreign books that deal with homosexuality e.g. B. employees on the Iberian Peninsula and published in English or French and contain articles by various authors, he has published.

Award

Works (books)

  • Senhores de Si: Uma interpretação Antropologica da masculinidade , 2000. (Men and the affirmation of the ego: An interpretation of the anthropology of masculinity).
  • Outro Destinos: Ensaios de Antropologia e cidadanía , Campo das Letras, Porto 2004. (Other aims: essays on anthropology and urbanization).
  • Transitos Colonias: Diálogos críticos Luso-Brasileiros , UNICAMP, Campinas 2007. (Colonial Transit: Critical Dialogues of Brazilians of Portuguese Origin).
  • A Chave do Armário - Homosexualidade, casamento, família , ICS, Lisbon 2010 (The key to the closet- homosexuality, marriage, family).

swell

personal data
SURNAME Almeida, Miguel Vale de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Almeida, Miguel de Matos Castanheira do Vale de (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Portuguese anthropologist, university professor, writer, politician and LGBT activist
DATE OF BIRTH August 21, 1960
PLACE OF BIRTH Lisbon , Portugal