"When they invited me, i didn't take it seriously”: life course and power relations in the Portuguese parliament

Abstract

Who the Members of Portuguese Parliament are? What do the representatives of the people represent? Why is it that for some to be in parliament was something wanted and prepared and for others something "unpredictable and unexpected"? Why do some MPs feel “at home” and others consider themselves like "fish out of water"? Based on an ethnography of the Portuguese Parliament, this article discusses how and why political representation is largely dominated by educated men, from large urban areas and part of multiple political environments. Then, it is argued that the individual agency of the MPs can only be understood in the context of their insertion in a deeply hierarchical world. Finally, it is argued that different social and cultural backgrounds enhance or inhibit access, permanence and adaptation to the gears of the political/parliamentary field. A field that is structured from the possession of the political capital, that is, a form of composite capital, simultaneously cultural, social and symbolic, unequally distributed, which stablished a set of boundaries between who is inside and who is outside, between who can represent and who should be represented.