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Mouraria’s identity is marked by the multicultural coexistence of its inhabitants. Immigrated residents that open their businesses in the neighbourhood cohabit with local residents who also migrated to Lisbon in the 1950s and 1960s from the Portuguese provinces and Galiza (Spain). It was in the mid-1970s, when Mouraria began to receive Indo-Portuguese, Hindus and Muslim immigrants, from the African Portuguese colonies, opening commercial businesses. Between 1991 and 2001 the district attracted new residents, among them Guineans and Cape Verdeans. In the early 2000s, along with Chinese from Zhejiang Province, which opened commercial stores, also appeared Pakistani and Bangladeshi businesses (Bastos, 2004; Mapril, 2010). In 2002, a survey on commerce in Mouraria carried out by the Mouraria Project Unit (UPM) found that 56.9% of the commerce was owned by Portuguese, 31.5% was in Indian hands, 4.8% Africans, 3.6% Chinese and 2.4% Pakistanis (UP Mouraria, 2010). In 2010, Senegalese and Zairians opened businesses in the area of cosmetics, music, food products and catering. In Mouraria, there were 51 different nationalities in 2009 (Fonseca, McGarrigle, et.al., 2012), and in 2011 statistical studies revealed that 8% of the population were immigrants, most of them from the PALOP countries (41% ), Indo-Portuguese (7%), Chinese (3%) and North and South American (2%), other Asian countries (19%), and Europeans (17%), (INE, 2012).

In 2016, according to our characterization survey developed in the neighborhood (Moya and Batista, 2017), we observed that the Chinese community is an immigrant group with autonomy in its functional structure, in charge of services (16%) and commerce (84%). It is a community that self-sustains the functional needs of its members with a varied number of services (arrangements, cleaning, laundry, culture, education, recreation, finances, travel agencies, hotels, restaurants and snack bars, beauty centers and health), with two weekly journals written only in Chinese addressed to all the Chinese community: Europe Weekly (since 1999) and PuXin (since 2005). It counts with social organizations, including religious associations (Chinese Evangelist Christian Church and the Daoist Association of Portugal) and aid associations (Association of Shandong Chinese, Support Centre of the Chinese Immigrant and the European Association of Zhejiang businessmen). The Chinese community has nearly the monopoly of wholesale in the neighbourhood, located mainly in the two shopping malls of Martim Moniz Square. The small properties, trade and services of all South Asian ethnic groups, represent 14,8 % of the total working population, therefore there are considered high entrepreneur immigrants behind the Chinese which represented 27% (Malheiros, Estevens, et.al., 2016:19). The population from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal have a business trade that is geographically dispersed in the neighborhood. The Bangladeshi group had the majority of food commerce (35%), with minimarkets, grocery stores and butchers Halal. It is a community with an active presence in the religious public life, with important date festivities. They represent a group with diversity in their religious beliefs, rituals and religious social structures. The Muslim community, for example, enables the affiliation of members with wider cultural backgrounds. Since the 1990s, Indian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Guinean-Bissau, Guinean Conakry and some number of Moroccan citizens, meet and gather in a transnational Muslim community at the Martim Moniz Jamea Masjid place of cult. In 2000, a group of Bangladeshi migrants also created the Baitul Mukarram Mosque in Mouraria, informally called “Bangla Mosque”.

Bibliography:

BASTOS, C., – Lisboa, século XXI: uma pós-metrópole nos trânsitos mundiais. In José Machado Pais, Leila Maria Blass (orgs.), Tribos Urbanas: Produção Artística e Identidades. Lisboa: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais, 2004, 195-224.

FONSECA, M. L.; MCGARRIGLE, J., et.al – Modes of inter-ethnic coexistence in three neighbourhoods, Lisbon Metropolitan Area: a comparative perspective. Lisboa: Colibri, Centro de Estudos Geográficos, 2012.

INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE ESTATÍSTICA (INE) Censos 2011, Resultados definitivos. Região Lisboa, 2012.

MALHEIROS, J., ESTEVENS, A., et.al. – Diversity in the Economy and Local Integration (DELI), Lisbon (Final Report). Lisbon: Universidade de Lisboa, IGOT, CEG, CM Lisbon, May 2016.

MAPRIL, J., – Banglapara: Imigração, Negócios e (In)formalidades em Lisboa. In Etnográfica, Vol 14 (2), 2010, 243-263.

MOYA, A.M., and BATISTA, D., – A Dimensão do Património Intangível em Paisagens Urbanas Históricas Multiculturais. Bairro da Mouraria como Estudo de Caso. Portugal, Território de Territórios, Atas do IX Congresso Português de Sociologia, Lisboa: Associação Portuguesa de Sociologia, 2017, 1-16.

From the 2000 onwards, the effects of neoliberalism and globalization are evident in the increase in social mobility, migration flows and mass tourism, in the context of urban “super-diversity” of Mouraria’s residents. This fact has irreversible effects in the transformation of social, cultural and economic processes in the neighbourhood, and in changing the nature and identity of the urban landscape as a whole. Residential temporality has been a variable that has affected in the last ten years the dynamics of cultural integration and interaction in the neighbourhood (Moya, 2019). Urban communities and institutional actors have been trying to preserve the authenticity of its urban atmosphere, establishing a balance between the “super-diversity” of migratory life models (Vertovec, 2007), the continuity of neighbourhood traditions and tourist consumption patterns.

In 2012, Lisbon saw a huge increase in city tourism, with 2,9 million visitors (INE 2012). Lisbon also became a hotspot for the city tourism industry, with two distinguished awards won in 2017 as Best World Destiny by City Break, and in 2018 as the Best European Destiny of the World Awards.Therefore, touristic lodgings play an important role in the offer of services, with an increase in the number of short term rental offers in virtual platforms such as Airbnb and HomeAway. In a characterisation survey carried out in June 2016, only within these platforms, we accounted an offer of 528 touristic apartments and 119 renting rooms (Moya and Batista, 2017: 14). In July 2019, a new analysis of data was extracted from www.airdna.co, reporting the short-term rental properties in Mouraria within the same virtual platforms, gave us the value of 1.223 apartments and 196 renting rooms; an offer that represents a growth of 119%, in three years (Moya, 2021). Left image: Tourists in transit at Nossa Sra da Saúde procession. Source: A. Moya, May 2016.

There is also an international real estate investment market in the renovation of housing for specifically touristic lodging or for investment purposes. Foreigners are encouraged to apply for so-called golden visas and fiscal benefits when pursuing new properties. Two years before the Covid-19 crisis (2018-19), every single corner in the neighbourhood had buildings under renovation or under construction. Therefore, since august 2018, the Municipality imposed the banning of new local touristic lodging in those historical neighbourhoods located in the historical core of the city, such as Mouraria or Castelo, Alfama, Graça, Bairro Alto, Madragoa, or Chiado , which needed to be protected from aggressive economical investment forces. The increase in real estate investments by foreign capital, together with the offer of tourist residences on shared economy platforms (Airbnb and Homeaway) and the opening of new catering and commerce venues aimed at tourists, pave the irreversible path of “gentrification” and “ touristification” of the neighbourhood.

The lively social and collaborative nature of the neighbourhood has been dramatically changing at an accelerated rate, by the forced eviction of the neighbors, the non-renovation or the increase of their rents, with dramatic and painful situations of having to abandon their family homes where they lived for three generations. Gentrification processes also affect the local commerce, the local taverns, and family restaurants, and the craftsmanship ateliers and shops, including the collaborative networks of socio-cultural and regional associations, which cannot afford to pay the high rents of their establishments. The City Council, and the parish of St. Maria Maior, created in April 2018 the initiative “The Faces of Eviction. For the Right to Inhabit the Historic Centre”, with the purpose of giving visibility and voice to the witnesses of evictions in the historical centre of Lisbon. At the present, this process of social desertification of the historical centre, causes, for the first time, the anonymity and isolation of the few local residents that remain in the neighbourhood. In the past, Mouraria was known for the social cooperation among its neighbours. Nowadays, many residents complain that they do not know the new residents. Now, those empty apartments that are renovated receive temporary tourists or international residents that live during certain periods of the year. Residents turn out to be all strangers to each other.  Left Image: Arrival to Lisbon of Britannia Cruise P&O with 3.647 tourists and 1.350 crew. Source: A. Moya, 2017.

In 2018, sixteen residents in Lagares Street, number 25, won the battle against an investor that bought the house for touristic lodging. With the aid of the City Council the residents arrived at an agreement with the new owner to extend for five years their new rent contracts, delaying their possible eviction for that time. However, the same year 2018, in January, Casa dos Amigos do Minho had its definitive closure. This emblematic building, with 65 years of history in the neighbourhood, on Benformoso street, was sold by a real estate investor. The disappearance of this symbolic regional association gave public visibility to the destruction of Mouraria’s popular neighbouring identity. Right image: Touristic moto-cars in Baixa, Lisbon. Source: A. Moya, 2017.

Bibliography:

INSTITUTO NACIONAL ESTATÍSTICA (INE), Censos 2011, Resultados Definitivos. Região Lisboa. Lisboa: Instituto Nacional Estatística, IP, 2012. http://censos.ine.pt/

MOYA, A.; BATISTA, D., “A dimensão do património intangível em paisagens urbanas históricas multiculturais. Bairro da Mouraria como estudo de caso”. Em Portugal, Território de Territórios, Atas do IX Congresso Português de Sociologia, Lisboa: Associação Portuguesa de Sociologia, 2017, 1-16.

MOYA, A., “Sustentabilidade sociocultural na paisagem urbana histórica e multicultural no bairro da Mouraria, Lisboa”. Em GOT, Revista de Geografia e Ordenamento do Território, n.17 (junho), Centro de Estudos de Geografia e Ordenamento do Território, 2019, 179-199.

MOYA PELLITERO, A., “O Papel do Corpo na Redefinição da Identidade da Paisagem Urbana. Caso de Estudo da Mouraria, Lisboa”. Em P. Fidalgo (Coord.) Dinâmicas da paisagem: entre a realidade e o desejo (Vol.I). HTC, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, U Nova de Lisboa, Lisboa, 2021, 74-92.

VERTOVEC, S., Super-diversity and its Implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies. London: Routledge, 2007, 1024-1054.

Mouraria’s urban landscape heritage is a social, cultural and also an economic asset. It forms part of the shared identity values of its community, of the city’s historical legacies that determines its cultural richness but also is fundamental for a sustainable economic development, moving tourist and cultural industries. The conservation of the urban landscape heritage by public policies takes these facts into account. As the UNESCO Historic Urban Landscape Recommendation states, the heritage values of the urban landscape are no longer found in monuments and architectural ensembles, but also in the broader recognition of the social, cultural and economic processes that enable a sustainable development and preserve and enhance specific qualities of the urban environment, based on a complex interrelationship between the physical-geomorphological space and social practices in their intangible dimension related to cultural diversity and creativity.

Limits of Mouraria neighbourhood in Lisbon according to the four different urban requalification plans (1989, 1997, and 2009). In white the area of our present case study. Source: A. Moya.

Regarding Mouraria’s physical morphology and built urban fabric, several elements are relevant tangible heritage assets in its urban landscape. The neighbourhood was little affected by the 1755 earthquake, with few Pombaline reconstruction interventions. This fact allowed the conservation of its urban spatial structure with fundamental elements of Islamic urbanism. Its heritage attributes are found in its compact and irregular physical structure. In the Lisbon General Directorate of Cultural Heritage, it is registered as a morphological unit and medieval urban set. It corresponds to an urban area with a Muslim-medieval layout: narrow and winding streets, multiple corners, alleys, and staircases that adapt to the relief of the mountain slopes of the northwest São Jorge Castle Hill. The Heritage Catalog of the Urbanization Plan for the Historic Center of Mouraria (1997) highlights churches, convents and palaces that played a preponderant role in the public-religious structure of the city, including the Ermida de São Sebastião (16th century), later designated as Chapel of Nossa Senhora da Saúde (1662), which survived the demolitions of Baixa da Mouraria in the 1950s, with popular devotion to the procession of its virgin within the most important religious rituals of Mouraira and Lisbon. The Church of São Cristóvão (1670) plays a pivotal role in the religious life of the Christian community in Mouraria. In 2016, the project “Art for São Cristovão”, which won a Lisbon Participatory Budget, attracted support, through artistic activities, for the renovation following a Plan for the Conservation and Revitalization of the Church. Right image: Mother Church of São Cristóvão. Mannerist and Baroque architecture from the end of XVIIth century. Source: A. Moya, 2017.

Urban design and redevelopment of Largo Martim Moniz (1997), which (despite severe criticisms) has become, over time, an authentic multicultural living space. St. Geoge hill, Socorro and São Cristovão area in the background (Mouraria), October, 2017. Source: A. Moya.

Mouraria has been for many decades an abandoned, ruined and stigmatized neighbourhood. In the 1950s its urban identity was weakened by Baixa da Mouraria sanitation and demolition interventions and road structure modernization strategies. The destruction of Figueira’s public market and the historic quarters of Mouraria’s commercial streets and those adjacent to N. Sra do Socorro church and its adjacent public spaces caused the displacement of part of the residents to the outskirts of the city. The demolitions left the urban emptiness of Martim Moniz square, which became an expectant space for decades. Baixa da Mouraria, which was a vital centre in the past, became a forgotten and peripheral space until the inauguration, in 1997, of the new Martim Moniz square. Despite being the object of severe criticism, it became over time an authentic space for multicultural and multi-ethnic coexistence and a symbolic space for diversity (Menezes, 2012).The ruined situation of Mouraria’s built heritage and the lack of success of the Urban Rehabilitation Plans of the 1980s and 1990s prolonged its abandonment for more than half a century. In 2010, Mouraria was a stigmatized neighbourhood, with its identity marked by the degradation of its built heritage and housing buildings, the ageing of the population, poverty, abandonment, drug trafficking and prostitution.

The revitalizing impulse of urban requalification policies since 2009 was relevant for the boost of urban renovation processes, the attraction of new residents, Real State and tourism investment, and a meeting point for Lisbon’s cultural agenda. Mouraria’s Action Program (PA, 2009) was approved by the QREN (National Strategic Reference Framework) and implemented in the period 2011-13, together with Mouraria’s Community Development Plan (PDCM, 2012) and the BIP/ZIP programs. These last ones were implemented from 2011 onwards, allowing a set of operations with the purpose to enhance the tangible and intangible heritage and the economic, social and cultural diversity of the neighbourhood. Left image: Urban rehabilitation of Largo do Intendente (2013). Source: A. Moya, 2016.

The institutional strategic interventions in public spaces and public buildings have been relevant to encourage the drive for private capital investment in rehabilitation in the neighbourhood. Without private investment, Mouraria’s built fabric would be in ruins, but there is a high price to pay when gentrification processes follow. They weaken forms of local cultural identity and ways of life in the context of a historic neighbourhood.

State of conservation of Mouraria’s built tissue. Survey carried out between March and June 2016. Source: A. Moya.

Bibliography:

FONSECA, M. L., Imigração, Diversidade e Novas Paisagens Étnicas e Culturais. In FERREIRA LAGES, Mário; MATOS, Artur Teodoro, eds. – Portugal: Percursos de Interculturalidade, vol. II- «Contextos e Dinâmicas», ACIME, 2009, 49-96.

MENDES, V., Socorro, Freguesia Mourisca: Berço do Fado. Lisboa: Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, 1996.

MENEZES, M., Mouraria, Retalhos de um Imaginário. Significados Urbanos de um Bairro de Lisboa. Oeiras: Celta Editora, 2004.

MOYA, A.; BATISTA, D., A Dimensão do Património Intangível em Paisagens Urbanas Históricas Multiculturais. Bairro da Mouraria como Estudo de Caso. Portugal, Território de Territórios, Atas do IX Congresso Português de Sociologia, Lisboa: Associação Portuguesa de Sociologia, 2017, 1-16.

MOYA, A., “Sustentabilidade sociocultural na paisagem urbana histórica e multicultural no bairro da Mouraria, Lisboa”. Em GOT, Revista de Geografia e Ordenamento do Território, n.17 (junho), Centro de Estudos de Geografia e Ordenamento do Território, 2019, 179-199.

UNESCO. Recomendação sobre a Paisagem Histórica Urbana. In Anexo Resolução 36C/15, Vol.1. Paris, 2011. Organização das Nações Unidas para a Educação, as Ciências e a Cultura. [Consultado 12.2016, Disponibilidade: http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev]

From 2010, the institutional intervention and promotion of a set of strategic operations to enhance public space, built and sociocultural heritage, was also accompanied by continued economic support of dozens of local social and cultural associations that maintain their active role in projects that aim to reduce the phenomena of poverty, social exclusion, and to promote a space for communication, exchange and socio-cultural interaction in the neighbourhood, enhancing popular traditions and multi-ethnic coexistence. All these urban policies and planning also fostered citizen participation, intercultural dialogue, and urban cohesion, improving the interaction between different ethnic and social groups (FONSECA, 2009: 93). 

After carrying out the Action Program (2011-2013), the Mouraria Community Development Plan (2012) and the BIP/ZIP programs since 2010, we can observe the strengthening of social organizations. Along with historical associations such as Grupo Desportivo da Mouraria (1936), Centro Escolar Republicano Almirante Reis (1911), and Regional Associations, in recent years have appeared new local associations with the desire to energize and expand the cultural panorama of the local community. These new Associations bring together neighbourhood residents and visitors, all of them involved in the development, support and construction of social and intercultural projects in Mouraria. During the different editions of the BIP/ZIP program, since 2010, twenty one projects of local partnerships were financed in Mouraria. Left image: Casa Comunitária da Mouraria (rehabilitated in 2011-13). Headquarters building of Renovar a Mouraria association, in Beco do Rosendo, Mouraria. Source: A.Moya, 2017.

Main cultural and recreational (pink), social (green) and artistic intervention (yellow) associations in the neighborhood, May 2016. Source: A. Moya.

Mouraria’s Regional  Associations (Gouveia, Minho, Covilhã, Lafões, and Sertã), have played a pivotal role in preserving the popular traditions and identity of Mouraria’s neighbourhood, but they are in danger of  disappearing by economic real estate interests. Already in 2017, these Associations were suffering the ageing and decline in the number of their members, with a lack of generational renovation, and fragile economic structures that could not afford the increase of the renting prices. Mouraria’s associative groups are all of a very different nature. Each one has its idiosyncrasy and operational philosophy, and it is this diversity and uniqueness in its associative structure that gives great cultural richness to the neighbourhood:  “Casa Independente” (2012) develops cultural and recreational promotion ; “Largo Residências” (2011) is a hybrid between artistic production and cultural – recreational promotion, in order to integrate and give visibility to the identity of the local communities; “Chapitô” (1981) is solely artistic, aimed at the most disadvantaged population, with a strong interest in research and artistic education, and with a local impact, and national and international projection; “Associação Renovar a Mouraria” (2008), is  committed to cooperation and sustainable development and the risk of social exclusion with recreational, cultural and service activities aimed at the local population; “c.e.m – centro em movimento” (1998), is dedicated to the artistic research of movement and the “body”, including immersion activities with the local community and urban “places”; “Casa da Achada” (2008), gathers an artistic-literary collection, and it is involved in the promotion, creation and cultural dissemination, both for residents and for the rest of the city; and finally, “Cocina Popular da Mouraria” (2012), is a social project of inclusion and reintegration, employability and intercultural collaboration among local residents, within the cross-language theme of cooking and gastronomy. 

Many associations were born during the elaboration and implementation of the Action Plan (2009) and the Community Development Plan (2012), helping to  transform and revitalise the neighbourhood. They emerged within the social fabric, with the aim of strengthening the cultural local identity, promoting multicultural wealth, improving the integration and social cohesion and encouraging the socio-economic and sustainable development of Mouraria’s neighbourhood. Associations were born and received financial help to drive and implement this transformation. However, “gentrification” processes are forcing them to redefine their own identity. How long these associations will last in time when their physical location in the neighbourhood and the social nature of their residents is in danger? Right image: Night of storytelling at Beco do Rosendo, in the Communitarian House of Renovate Mouraria Association (June, 2017. Source: A. Moya).

Over these years, Mouraria’s socio-cultural associations have established a series of spatio-temporal relationships that benefited the reconstruction and identity reinvention of the urban landscape. As an example we can mention “Largo Residências” or “Renovar a Mouraria” associations, which have revitalized the social dynamics and the use of public space around their headquarters. The “Café-Estúdio Largo”, in Largo do Intendente, managed by “Largo Residências” association, has a daily presence in the public space, and is a meeting point for artists, tourists, neighbours and the general public. It is in the “Café-Estúdio” that cultural dissemination takes place (concerts, exhibitions, and presentations of artistic residencies, among other activities). The headquarters of “Renovar a Mouraria” association, called “Casa Comunitária da Mouraria” (community house) had in the past a cafeteria open to the public that supported them economically with multicultural community lunches on certain days of the week. The “Casa Comunitária” has been a meeting point in the neighbourhood for the offering of free health, aesthetics, gastronomy, courses, and other services to the less privileged residents. The association maximized the potential in the use of public space with the programming of Planisfério Stage, in front of the building, in Beco do Rosendo. It has been a relevant public space for the neighbourhood, which has continuously, since July 2015, offered shows, parties, markets, gastronomy, cinema or literary meetings. Left image: Santos Populares Festivities at Intendente square, organized by Largo Residências (July, 2016. Source: A. Moya).

Bibliography:

CASTELLS, M., The Power of Identity. The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture, Volume II. West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 1997, 2010.

MENEZES, M., Mouraria, Retalhos de um Imaginário. Significados Urbanos de um Bairro de Lisboa. Oeiras: Celta Editora, 2004.

MOYA, A. & BATISTA, D., “A dimensão do património intangível em paisagens urbanas históricas multiculturais. Bairro da Mouraria como estudo de caso”. Em Portugal, Território de Territórios, Atas do IX Congresso Português de Sociologia, Lisboa: Associação Portuguesa de Sociologia, 2017, 1-16.

MOYA, A., “O valor identitário da paisagem urbana multicultural e a sua dimensão geracional. O caso de estudo da Mouraria, Lisboa”. Em H. Cruz, I. Bezelga e R. Aguiar (Coords), Práticas Artísticas: Participação e Comunidade, II EIRPAC – Encontro Internacional de Reflexão sobre Práticas Artísticas Comunitárias 2017, CHAIA, UÉ., 2019A, 495-512.

MOYA, A., “Sustentabilidade sociocultural na paisagem urbana histórica e multicultural no bairro da Mouraria, Lisboa”. Em GOT, Revista de Geografia e Ordenamento do Território, n.17 (junho), Centro de Estudos de Geografia e Ordenamento do Território, 2019B, 179-199.

MOYA PELLITERO, A., “O Papel do Corpo na Redefinição da Identidade da Paisagem Urbana. Caso de Estudo da Mouraria, Lisboa”. Em P. Fidalgo (Coord.) Dinâmicas da paisagem: entre a realidade e o desejo (Vol.I). HTC, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, U Nova de Lisboa, Lisboa, 2021, 74-92.

The metaphor of the “landscape as theatre” leads us to reassess what is inherent as human beings, which is the pleasure of being actors in the territory, making each of our conscious actions or interventions in any environment a landscape rediscovery. Only in acting as performative actors and observing our acting as spectators can we understand the meaning that our actions have in the environment and the landscape (Turri 1998, 28). Through body movement, sensory experiences, cultural encounters and community exchanges taking place in space, inhabitants generate a space of affection, of intensities and resonances linked to memory, of intimate isolation and collective participation (Yi-Fu Tuan 1977; Stewart 2007; Butler 2015). These bodily interactions with the environment are based on constant relationships of modification and reciprocity with other “bodies” and with the urban space. The focus is on this performative nature of the “body” in space, on this continuous weaving of behavioural patterns that are constantly speaking of affects (Anderson and Harrison 2010).

Urban places are no longer symbolic, simply discursive or visual, but they become spaces for bodily participation when socio-cultural associations interact in space with participative cultural activities addressed to the community. The urban landscape, therefore, becomes an active, creative and predicative space of bodily and sensorial experiences. Many of Mouraria’s artistic and cultural activities addressed to the residents are based on participatory and collaborative art activities, in which the interaction and choreography of the “body” in space play a relevant role. Transdisciplinarity and the fusion of artistic languages are present in performative events in Mouraria, such as the creation and design of shared experiences, sensory group interactions and the experience and construction of immaterial heritage in the “now”.

We can mention two examples. One is related to gastronomy activities, the other to an artistic conviviality among artists and residents through body performance and movement . In the first example, gastronomy is linked to the affections of the people who live in the neighborhood and is a sensorial experience that cuts across all languages and cultures while sharing the same urban space. The association “Cozhina Popular da Mouraria”, located in Olarias street, is a center that has become an extension of the houses of the people. A place where they can socialize and share experiences, and friendship around the food, the kitchen and the pleasure of eating and cooking. A corporal and sensory experience that also involves sharing memories, learning new recipes, getting an education in stoves (with a school project), and employability. Their activities around a culinary community program is also a platform for the integration and social cohesion of the residents. The project “A Comida ConVida” (2018), was produced in collaboration with “Largo Residências” and “Cozinha Popular”, in a dinner-dance concert that crossed the ingredients with the dance steps and the sounds of Indian, African, Chinese and Portuguese cultures. The performing group was made up of artist-cooks from the neighborhood, music and dance lovers, and gastronomy dancers and musicians. The audience participated in the dance and tasting of flavors. In 2018, Largo da Rosa, and the old washing place, was transformed into a public kitchen in the public space.

The second example refers to the work developed in the neighbourhood by “c.e.m – centro em movimento” association, with creative, artistic research and interdisciplinary reflection activities around the experimentation of body work, movement, urban places, people and communication. They create and nourish themselves from their urban experiences and they cross and travel with their “bodies” spaces and among residents. They do not leave traces and marks in the “place”. They do not want to intervene or change what is happening in the “place”. They just observe, feel the “places”, the life around them, its flow, share and learn from them. The members of “c.e.m – centro em movimento” establish with neighbourhood residents and places a relationship of networks of affections, which lasts since 2005 to the present day. One of their research exercises is “Pedras-Práticas com Pessoas e Lugares”. A practice aligned with the “derive” of the Situationists listening to the city. The “Pedras Festival – Experiential and Immersive” takes place annually since 2006, in the month of July, in the sharing of experimental exercises “Body-Art-City” (Figure 5). In these activities in the public space of neighbourhoods such as Mouraria, and other neighborhoods in Lisbon, it is always proposed a conviviality in different urban contexts, ranging from debates, festive gatherings, artistic interventions, walks, routes and manuals of being with the ” body” in space.

Bibliography:

ANDERSON, B. and HARRISON, P., “The Promise of Non-Representational Theories”. In B. Anderson and P. Harrison (eds), Non-Representational Theories and Geography. UK,Farnham: Ashgate, 2010, 1-34.

BUTLER, J., Senses of the Subject. New York: Fordham Unversity Press, 2015

MOYA PELLITERO, A., “O Papel do Corpo na Redefinição da Identidade da Paisagem Urbana. Caso de Estudo da Mouraria, Lisboa”. In P. Fidalgo (Coord.) Dinâmicas da paisagem: entre a realidade e o desejo (Vol.I). HTC, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, U Nova de Lisboa, Lisboa, 2021, 74-92.

STEWART, K., Ordinary Affects. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007.

TURRI, E., Il Paessaggio come Teatro. Dal Territorio Vissuto al Territorio Rappresentato. Venezia: Marsilio, 1998.

YI-FU, T., Space and Place: The perspective of experience (1977). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001.