This article focuses on the different images of Mediterranean
Portugal developed by three important Portuguese social scientists
of the 20th century: the geographer Orlando Ribeiro, the
ethnologist Jorge Dias and the social anthropologist José Cutileiro.
The article argues that these different images stem from different
ideological attitudes towards the countryside, ranging from pastoral
to counter-pastoral, and are also related to different ways of
addressing the links between the countryside and national identity
