The role of communal lands in the revitalization of rural areas in Portugal

Abstract

Communal lands were essential for the survival of communities in pre-modern societies being traditionally used for cultivation or grazing, collecting wood or stone for buildings, bushes for fuel or for fertilization, honey production, etc. In Portugal, they have survived to this day, despite the attacks that were driven mainly from the second half of the eighteenth century by an adverse state inspired by liberal thinking and by a fierce and powerful rural bourgeoisie who anxiously wanted to lay hands on these lands. The fact that communities have had to face attacks from different antagonists (feudal nobility, gentlemen farmers, landowning bourgeoisie, physiocratic, liberal and positivist thinkers, modern state administration) has strengthened ties and strengthened collective action in communities. The recognition of community property by the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic of 1976 was an opportunity to recreate new forms of use of common goods more appropriate to contemporary realities. Some of these ways were aimed at revitalizing communities through collective action and investment in material and social capital; some other ways have sought to broaden and diversify access to the use of common goods in order to meet the demands of external users such as tourism, sports or leisure agencies. In these cases, the activities carried out could involve a high degree of commodification, unlike what happened in the first ones when the “solidarity economy” was strengthened. The presentation of two cases with different orientations allows for a debate on the future of communal lands in Portugal and on the risks and challenges of the new uses of these lands.