Paper Short Abstract:

In the village of Soajo, renown for its monumental landscapes of centennial granite buildings, an electronic music sunset party was organized as a form of symbolic distancing from usual reenactments of cultural heritage. This case study highlights aspects of identity-making and self-othering that often come from living in a heritage site.

Paper Abstract:

The Soajo mountains feature a scatterning of centennial granite buildings, which are a national reference for folk architecture. Prominently, a complex of granite granaries ordered in a communal threshing-floor, perched over a massive rock formation, overlooks the small village of Soajo. As one of many officially recognized monuments of Soajo heritage, the stone granaries are a part of a symbolic reenactment of soajeiro cultural identity. They are also a popular focus for tourism, connected to a broader reclaiming and revival of folklorist aesthetics.

The site was, additionally, the place for an electronic music party, a “Granary Sunset”, organized by soajeiro natives. Brought about by a desire to break from the formalities of Soajo folklore, enacted “for others to watch and learn”, the sunset party is described as a celebration “just for locals.” The gathering can be revisited through smartphone recordings, which register a fascinating trans-temporal hybridization of symbols and aesthetics.

Drawing from ongoing fieldwork in northwestern Portugal, as well as observations and testimonials from working with soajeiro natives, this presentation questions conventional attitudes towards heritage, identity, and tradition, by focusing on the Granary Sunset Party as a case-study in reconfiguring living with, and from, an inherited monumental past. I will discuss issues of identity and identification, as well as a lingering sense of “self-othering” that comes from enacting one’s own cultural identifiers.