Cultural spaces as sites for identity formation : a Portuguese case study

Abstract

Notions of ethnicity and identity have become highly politicised questions. In the theoretical discourse on these subjects they are either understood as being in a state of fragmentation or intensification. Modernisation is often associated with technological and economic development in the lives of states and it is also understood as a kind of threat to cultural identity, because of the thin line between promotion and exploitation of local, regional and national industries and culture, by global markets. Hannerz (1996) states, “Globalization is a matter of increasing long-distance interconnectedness ... much of the world is now self-consciously one single field of persistent interaction and exchange” (pp. 17, 19). Globalisation is seen as an inevitable phenomenon that allows developments in several social sectors and technologies to provoke new forms of cultural production, consumption and social exchange. Portuguese ideas about culture and heritage, over the last eight hundred years, have shifted backwards and forwards from an emphasis on cultural transmission to one on cultural transformation and vice versa. Since heritage is a consequence of a dialectic between human activity and the environment, it is not surprising that it continues be an elusive concept. Although favourable ideological conditions since the revolution in 1974 have encouraged many studies of these concepts, in Portugal contradictory definitions have emerged. In this 25thApril Revolution of 1974, forty-eight years of dictatorship were finally overthrown by a military coup and Portugal was ready to promote the democratisation of culture.