Paper short abstract:

The paper analyses the social representation of place by the inhabitants of Porto's old city (a UNESCO WHS) as objectified by the photographs of 'important places' in Old Porto taken by former. The research to be presented is based both on the photographs and on the inhabitants' discourse on the places photographed. The information collected shows how by producing a thickly weaved and exclusively biographical place the inhabitants' are able to claim the place as theirs, thus negating to other social agents (namely the oficial powers of the city) the right to rule over the place's life.

Paper long abstract:

Lefebvre states that space is socially produced; De Certeau states that a neighbourhood is a place that is corporeally practised and for Tuan, a place is structured space: to a place we give names, to places we feel emotionally attached to (either by attraction or repulsion). It is following these authors understanding of space as place that the research to be presented collected and analysed the discourses on the places the inhabitants of a UNESCO WHS (the old city of Porto, northern Portugal) see as important. The paper analyses the social representation of place by the inhabitants of Porto's old city (a UNESCO WHS) as objectified by the photographs of 'important places' in Old Porto taken by former. The research to be presented is based both on the photographs and on the inhabitants' discourse on the places photographed. The information collected shows how by producing a thickly weaved and exclusively biographical place the inhabitants' are able to claim the place as theirs, thus negating to other social agents (namely the oficial powers of the city) the right to rule over the place's life.