Built heritage-making and socioeconomic renewal in declining rural areas : evidence from Portugal

This article focuses on the connections between built heritage-making and socioeconomic renewal in declining rural areas. Drawing on fieldwork in twelve rural villages in eastern Portugal, it sheds light on the outcomes of a State-led programme, the objectives of which were to renovate the historic built fabric and generate tourism revenue for a region with declining population levels. Overall, the programme was successful in terms of preservation / conservation of monuments and the built fabric, but failed to stimulate the anticipated social and economic development. The conclusion is that the making of heritage spaces is not the remedy for the economic and demographic ills of rural areas, notwithstanding the positive effect that such measures may have in certain cases.

Beneath the surface of the heritage enterprise. Governmentality and cultural representation of rural architecture in Portugal

This article focuses on the construction of heritage in rural Portugal. Drawing on anthropological fieldwork in the village of Castelo Rodrigo, it analyses the extensive protection and exhibition of domestic architecture in the framework of a State-led local development programme. By bringing in the messiness of daily practices, the article goes beyond neat theoretical formulations in the study of heritage such as Foucault’s theory of “governmentality” and Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’s notion of “second life as heritage”. It argues that the “conduct of conduct” is actually nowhere near as effective as its theoretical formulation might have us believe, and the second life as heritage suffocates the first life of houses as social habitats for the village population.