Hybridization and cultural translation in times of globalization: Reflections on contemporary crafts in territorial perspective

Abstract

Globalizing dynamics have intensified the contacts of experiences and frictions between cultures hitherto distant, promoting hybridization processes on a territorial scale. This context interferes with artisanal production, whose representation is close to the notion of cultural translation proposed by Bhabha. In this article we analyze the possibilities and practices of recurrent hybridization in the expression of values, forms and knowledge of craftsmen when interacting with diverse and broader universes and symbolic codes. Based on the phenomenological method, we undertook empirical research in Costa Doce, a territory in southern Brazil, in which artisanal practice has undergone hybridizations in order to become an expression of territorial identity. The closing remarks point out that the hybridization processes, in which one seeks to link handicrafts to the identity expression of the territories, can be considered relevant strategies for the continuity of the handicraft practice as an economic alternative not dissociated from the symbolic, as long as they are conducted by the craftsmen themselves.