MEMÓRIAS E NARRATIVAS DO CANTO POLIFÔNICO ALENTEJANO

Abstract

The Alentejo polyphonic chant is one of the significant examples in which the past imposes itself as a unifying element of a "community of sharing" (RANCIÈRE, 2005), defined by the distribution of spaces, times and types of activities that determined the way a subalternized class communicate and make politics. Rurality, as a space of experience, perpetuates the past, and prevents us from neglecting the memory of collective singing as a practice of sociability and political resistance. And even though the new generations have not experienced rural life, or agricultural work, the poetic voice assumes the unifying function that allows practitioners to preserve the collective memory.