BORDERS WITHIN THE CITY : RETRACING MACAO’S IDENTITY城市中的邊界：追溯澳門的源流
This article analyzes how Macau's identity has been produced over the long term through the construction, negotiation, and persistence of borders. Drawing on a macroscopic approach and supported by findings from a year of ethnographic fieldwork in the city, the author articulates observable social p...
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| Published in: | Review of Culture |
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| Format: | Articles |
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Instituto Cultural de Macau
April 2009
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| Online Access: | https://www.icm.gov.mo/rc/viewer/pdfViewerParts/40030/3610 |
| Summary: | This article analyzes how Macau's identity has been produced over the long term through the construction, negotiation, and persistence of borders. Drawing on a macroscopic approach and supported by findings from a year of ethnographic fieldwork in the city, the author articulates observable social phenomena with historical events linked to Macau's physical and politico-administrative borders, arguing that the dynamics of interethnic and intercultural exchanges and interactions were structurally conditioned by such demarcations. The text contends that "borders" must be understood beyond their juridical or material sense: they also include cultural and imaginary borders, which operate as mechanisms of identification and the production of differences.
The historicized analysis shows that, in Macau, administrative and physical borders tend to coexist with cultural borders, which, even when the former were later attenuated or abolished, continued to produce effects on the social organization of space. It concludes that cultural diversity, far from being merely a consequence of global and imperial processes, functions as a constitutive feature of the place, mediating lived experiences and ways of inhabiting and signifying the city. Thus, the article proposes to retrace Macanese identity "from within" the city, highlighting the organic relationship between different border regimes. |
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| ISSN: | 1682-1106 |