Charolas de Bordeira, Santa Bárbara de Nexe Algarve Popular Culture, and Collective Memory

Abstract

The object of analysis in this article is the popular festive ritual tradition of ‘charolas’, which takes place every year around New Year’s Day and Three Kings Day, as practised in the small locality of Bordeira, which belongs to the parish of Santa Bárbara de Nexe in Faro in the Algarve region of southern Portugal. The aim is to briefly trace the roots of this particular form of expression and also its contemporary historical development, to describe its primary elements and transmission methods, and to explore how it has served as a vehicle of collective memory, cultural identity, and social integration throughout successive generations of bordeirenses (people of Bordeira). The methodology employed is based primarily on the collection of oral history and in situ observation, as well as audiovisual documentation of charolas during a January season in Bordeira and other localities in and around Faro. For the analysis carried out in the article, concepts such as collective memory (Joël Candau) and social frameworks of memory (Maurice Halbwachs) are used.