Double liminality: Fado events and tourism

Abstract

Tourism and the Portuguese music of fado demonstrate two different, but inter-dependent, forms of liminality. This has consequences for the interactions and understandings between tourists and fadistas. While both sets of actors are in the same location or liminoid space, they come from different social places. This chapter explores double liminality-tourists and fadistas (singers of fado)-following three visits to Lisboa (2014, 2016, and 2018), including four weeks of participant observation research. This contributes to the literature of tourists as liminal beings by applying the same concept to fadistas. The liminal characteristics of these two sets of ‘actors’ make for interesting ‘theatre’ or performances. The concept of ‘flow’ also applies to fado performances and the relationship of flow to liminality is analysed and explored.