The concept modo de vida: Between translations, definitions, and discussions

Abstract

The concept modo de vida has been widely used in social sciences, particularly to denote cultural changes, as seen in Durkheim, Weber, Wirth, Rambaud, Lefevbre, and Bourdieu. Nevertheless, the term modo de vida bears multiple, nuanced, meanings, making difficult to understand its distinct interpretations. Translations of studies from English and French to Portuguese sometimes present the same term to denote different original notions. In view of these ambiguities of the concept modo de vida, this article aims to analyze the meanings ascribed to the term modo de vida in both national and international literature. The methodological approach was based on secondary data comprised by studies featuring the term modo de vida or his correlates, and used network analysis as a tool to analyze the use of synonymy and translations of many terms related to modo de vida. The results points to distinct concepts, such as the French terms of genre de vie and style de vie, being often translated into Portuguese as modo de vida, therefore reinforcing the vagueness of the Portuguese term modo de vida.