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Paper short abstract:

I will adress processes and practices of patrimonialization of immaterial culture related with the border focusing on individual and social agency in reinventing practices, searching for an articulation with tourism.

Paper long abstract:

Old paths across the border, reconfigured and re-signified as smuggling routes, are - along with the cosntruction of Smuggling Museums - one of the most common local strategies for the symbolic representation of border culture, identity and memory. Along the Portuguese-Spanish border it is possible to identify routes built from ancient smugglers' paths that constitute, for the locals, on the one hand, a plunge into the past, necessary to think about themselves, individually and collectively, and, on the other, an openness to what they believe to be the future: the revitalization of the border area through tourism. Ethnographic research in Portuguese and Spanish communities on the Portuguese-Spanish border (Beira Interior Norte and Castilla Y Léon) has allowed us to identify discursive expressions that point towards the persistence of the social and political value of the border and the relationships that were formed in and from it. These strategies involve self-narratives, the musealization of smuggling, the activation of smugglers' paths as a product - the smuggling routes -, and the patrimonialization of local social practices that are directly related to the border. The communication explores forms of appropriation and reconfiguration of the border and its value, in particular, the commodification of the idea of border through the way in which paths were reconfigured locally, transforming them into products - the smuggling route - capable of attracting urban populations that they don't have any experience.