A territory woven in mobility: Two ethnographic enquiries

Abstract

The territory of social groups is the place they inhabit, the place where they eat, work, celebrate; in short, where they live and die. Yet we are also referring to a heterogeneous and dynamic place that is not just limited to mere geographical frameworks; a space constructed and reconstructed with practices and interaction between individuals and the environment; a space furnished with feelings. By way of two ethnographic investigations conducted with farming families in Brazil and Portugal, both defined by people’s mobility, we aim to discuss processes of territorial (re)construction, setting out from the notion of a house. This territoriality is characterised by people’s mobility, and the result of a discontinuous and physically fragmented territory connected by networks interwoven by the constant circulation of people and objects.