Paper short abstract:

We will try to explain a case study of challenge the model of the folk culture of the Estado Novo. We will used the concepts of tradition/modernity, true / false; folk culture / other cultures; Place / non-place; social imagination

Paper long abstract:

This paper brings the case study of a village in the Algarve, taking as a "ethnographic place", symbol of folk culture during the Estado Novo.

In recent years ethnographed spaces in the village have been transformed with the incorporation of new elements changing the old meaning. In this sense

the spaces marked by the Estado Novo (New State), as rural, earthy and "traditional" vision, was been open to other events and other uses; open to other appropriations.

These processes are of two kind: musealization of the "folk culture" and the conversion of its spaces into spaces of modernity.

The public spaces were in last years rebuilt by local institutions by "modern" elements. In contrast, the inhabitants have taken the defence of "tradition". The discussion follows the sense of Hobsbawn's tradition: authentic/fake; genuine/ invented.

Tradition became a social instrument with political connotations. In the politics/ technical perspective drawn for the place, "tradition" is seen as a cultural objectification that must the replaced. In contrast, for the majority of the locals, the architectural "modern" have no sense in these places; they maintain the defence of the folk culture, arguing that it is the essence of their identity.

The recent interventions legitimated by the power to built and rebuild, and the chorus of contestation reclaim for the "traditional" order concepts like - "place and "no place" "and "ethnoscape"- are vectors for analysis.