Helena Carreiras (born 1965) is a
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
sociologist who has specialized in issues relating to the military, particularly gender aspects. From 2019 she was director of Portugal's National Defence Institute (IDN) and in March 2022 she became Portugal's first female minister of national defence.
Early life and education
Maria Helena Chaves Carreiras was born on 26 September 1965 in
Portalegre in Portugal and lived with her parents and two sisters in a small village called
Alpalhão
Alpalhão is a civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combin ...
, close to Portalegre, where her parents were primary school teachers. When she was seven, the family moved to
Tomar
Tomar (), also known in English as Thomar (the ancient name of Tomar), is a city and a municipality in the Santarém district of Portugal. The town proper has a population of about 20,000. The municipality population in 2011 was 40,677, in an a ...
in the
Santarém District
The District of Santarém ( pt, Distrito de Santarém ) is a district of Portugal, located in Portugal's ''Centro Region''. The district capital is the city of Santarém.
The district is the 3rd largest in Portugal, with an area of , and a pop ...
. She graduated in sociology in 1987 from
ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon
ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa is a Portuguese public tertiary education institution. It is located in the city centre of Lisbon, in Cidade Universitária, adjoining the Institute of Social Sciences (ICS) and Institute of Geogr ...
in
Lisbon
Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...
, capital of Portugal. Despite her subsequent interest in military matters, she has said that she was a pacifist while at university.
In 1989 she joined ISCTE as a training assistant, teaching sociological methodologies. In the same year she spent a month in the United States as a guest of the
Atlantic Council
The Atlantic Council is an American think tank in the field of international affairs, favoring Atlanticism, founded in 1961. It manages sixteen regional centers and functional programs related to international security and global economic prosp ...
. In 1994 she obtained a master's degree from the ISCTE, with the thesis, ''Women-Soldiers or Soldiers-Women: A study on female participation in the Portuguese Armed Forces''. In 1999, she was a visiting scholar in the Department of Women's Studies at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
. She studied for a PhD in Social and Political Sciences from the
European University Institute
The European University Institute (EUI) is an international postgraduate and post-doctoral teaching and research institute and an independent body of the European Union with juridical personality, established by the member states to contribu ...
, based in
Fiesole
Fiesole () is a town and ''comune'' of the Metropolitan City of Florence in the Italian region of Tuscany, on a scenic height above Florence, 5 km (3 miles) northeast of that city. It has structures dating to Etruscan and Roman times.
Sin ...
near
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...
in Italy. While there, she met her husband, Andrés Malamud, now a professor at the
University of Lisbon
The University of Lisbon (ULisboa; pt, Universidade de Lisboa, ) is a public research university in Lisbon, and the largest university in Portugal. It was founded in 2013, from the merger of two previous public universities located in Lisbon, th ...
. They have two children, a son and a daughter. Carreiras received her PhD in 2004 with a thesis on the subject of the gender integration policies of the armed forces of
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
countries.
Academic career
After obtaining a PhD, Carreiras returned to work with ISCTE, becoming an associate professor of sociology, public policy and research methodology at the School of Sociology and Public Policy and a senior researcher at the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology (CIES).
From 2004 to 2006, Carreiras served as vice-president of the Portuguese Sociology Association. In 1997, she became a member of the editorial board of the publications ''Nação e Defesa'' and ''Sociologia – Problems e Práticas''. She was a member of the board of the European Sociological Association between 2009 and 2013. From 2010 to 2012, she was deputy director of the National Defence Institute (IDN), an organization that is independent of the Ministry of National Defence and provides academic support to the formulation and development of national strategic thinking in areas related to security and defence.[
Returning to ISCTE after her time at IDN, Carreiras was a visiting professor at the Department of Government at ]Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...
in Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
in 2013. In 2015, she was deputy director of CIES and in 2016, she became dean of the School of Sociology at ISCTE. Between 2017 and 2019 she was president of the European Research Group on Military and Society (ERGOMAS). From 2018 to 2019 she was deputy director of the Institute for Public and Social Policies at ISCTE and was on the general council of ISCTE. In 2019 she became the first woman to head the National Defence Institute.
Minister of Defence, 2022–present
On 23 March 2022 Carreiras was appointed as minister of national defence in the XXIII Constitutional Government of Portugal
The XXIII Constitutional Government of Portugal ( pt, XXIII Governo Constitucional de Portugal) is the current cabinet of the Portuguese government, the 23rd since the establishment of the current constitution. It was established on 30 March ...
under prime minister António Costa
António Luís Santos da Costa GCIH (; born 17 July 1961) is a Portuguese lawyer and politician serving as the 119th and current prime minister of Portugal since 26 November 2015, presiding over the XXI (2015–2019), XXII (2019–2022) and ...
.[ Again, she is the first woman to hold that office.
]
Research interests and publications
Carreiras has researched topics related to gender and society, the armed forces, security and defence, and qualitative research methodology. Much of her work has focused on gender integration in military institutions and gender aspects of international security. As of the beginning of 2022, she was the author of 14 books, 48 book chapters and 27 journal articles.[ These include:
*''Understanding the Impact of Social Research on the Military''. 2022. (edited, with Eyal Ben-Ari and Celso Castro), Routledge. .
*''Researching the Military''. 2016. (edited, with Celso Castro and Sabina Frederic), Routledge. .
*''Qualitative Methods in Military Studies''. 2013. (edited, with Celso Castro), Routledge. .
*''Women in the Military and in Armed Conflict''. 2008. (edited, with Gerhard Kümmel), Springer. .
*''Gender and the Military. Women in the Armed Forces of Western Democracies''. 2006. Routledge. .]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Carreiras, Helena
1965 births
Living people
Portuguese politicians
Ministers of National Defence of Portugal
Women government ministers of Portugal
People from Portalegre, Portugal
Independent politicians in Portugal
21st-century Portuguese women politicians
21st-century Portuguese politicians
European University Institute alumni
ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon faculty
Female defence ministers