Marques, José CarlosGóis, Pedro2017-12-132017-12-132013Marques J.C., Góis P. (2013) “Portuguese emigrants and the State: an ambivalent relationship”, in Michael Collyer (ed.), Emigration Nations: the ideologies and policies of emigrant engagement, Houndmills, Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 252-276http://hdl.handle.net/10400.8/2897Since the 19th century Portugal has been a country of emigration. As a result of this continuous outflow, estimates indicate that the number of Portuguese citizens and their descendants living in another country is between 2 and 4.8 million. The main countries of residence are, in the Americas, the United States, Brazil, Canada, and Venezuela, and, in Europe, France, Switzerland and Germany (taken together these seven countries concentrated 90% of all the Portuguese living abroad). After a brief description of the Portuguese emigration history, with a special emphasis on current emigration flows and the development of Portuguese communities in different host countries, the paper will analyse the relationships that Portuguese citizens abroad maintain with their country of origin. In the process of shaping these relations the Portuguese political institutions and the legal framework built to mould the connections that Portuguese emigrants maintain with the Portuguese State will deserve a special attention. As will be shown, the Portuguese State and its political elites had, particularly during the last decades, manifested a discomfort in dealing with contemporary emigration flows and with the Portuguese communities abroad. This attitude towards emigration leads to an ambivalent position both by the Portuguese State vis-à-vis Portuguese citizens living in other countries and by the emigrants towards their homeland.engEmigraçãoPolíticaDiásporabook parthttps://doi.org/10.1057/9781137277107_11