About
PhD Project: The social construction of Portuguese folk arts
Reference: SFRH/BD/129435/2017
Supervisor: Alice Duarte (IS-UP); Co-supervisor: Anthony Shelton
Timeline: 2017-2021
End beneficiaries/target population: Scholars, craftspeople, cultural agents, designers working with craft techniques
Abstract: This thesis seeks to map, characterise and problematise the field of Portuguese folk art. Assuming that folk art is a category construed in the domain of social practices, with concrete contexts of formulation, we sought to understand its specific features over time in the Portuguese context. Through a documentary and empirical analysis, at the disciplinary intersection between art history, anthropology, museology and heritage studies, and having as methodological support the actor-network theory, we seek to map the main actors – the actors, events, publications, objects and exhibitions – as well as the network connections to which they inevitably belong, to map out the social construction of Portuguese folk art.
