Paper short abstract:

Addressing examples of craft commercialization in contemporary Portugal, this paper will discuss different ways of evaluating the commoditization of folk art, looking at shopkeepers and other entrepreneurs as mediators and constructors of cultural meanings about folk artifacts and folk culture.

Paper long abstract:

Traditional ethnographic approaches have systematically refused to contemplate folk culture commercialization as anything else but a threat to authentic traditions -- a perspective connected to the nostalgic view of the rural way of life. Later on, particularly through the concept of folklorism, anthropology incorporated the commoditization of tradition in its debates: seen an inseparable feature of contemporary folk culture, commerce was conceived itself as the factor beneath the survival of many forms of rural craft. This time, however, commercialization was associated with other kind of distortion: not as an instrument of falsification of genuine folk traditions, but, on the contrary, as a way of perpetuating the false idea of an immutable folk community, distant from the modern objects brought by technological and economic progress. In a certain way, this theoretical perspective continued to see commerce as a disruptive feature.

Much of the recent anthropological work on folk culture's commoditization still walks on the same ideological paths, failing to address the multiple representational functions of the folk objects in contemporary society. Addressing some examples of craft commercialization in contemporary Portugal, this paper will discuss different ways of evaluating the commoditization of folk art, looking at shopkeepers, entrepreneurs and other agents, as mediators and constructors of cultural meanings about folk artifacts and folk culture. The inspiration for this reflection comes from works of such authors as Nestor Canclini, but above all from the anthropological analysis on ethnic and tourist arts.