Global Journal of Human Social Science, C: Sociology and Culture, Volume 21 Issue 5

attitude from which subjects reinvent themselves in the contemporary world. That happens from an attitude of evocation, activation and updating the original experience - tradition - and finding the truth of oneself not outside him or herself, but rather, from one's own standing ground (Mbembe, 2016, p. 67). Above all, the ability to constantly experience being-before- oneself ( ibid ., p. 152 my emphasis). Therefore, in Cova da Moura , it is from the mobilizing actions within the neighbourhood that a new logic is developed. In which, Cape Verdean identity is mobilized as an axis of resistance in face of speculation implied in the institutional plans of requalification 13 VI. C olá S on J on / K ola S an J on: T wo V ersions of the S ame A rchive? . For twenty years, the neighbourhood’s history has been a succession of disputes stimulated by the speculative wave of landowners and construction companies interested in the area (Gallardo, 2017, p. 248; Jorge and Carolino, 2019). In this context, Cova da Moura ’s trajectory is woven in a dynamic tapestry of crises pervaded by mobilization and resistance cycles: adaptation to new challenges and opportunities; overcoming the constraints through community’s mobilization – the Junta mõn institution. This dynamic fabric also suggests a cortege, in which creative resistance struggles ensue through sports practicing, the improvement of education, leisure conditions, and the associative trajectory for the reconstruction of archives based on the negotiation of new content in the light of old forms of tradition: the walking archives (cf. Borges, 2020). In this regard, we approach the pervasive nature of the archive, as a memory institution concerning life experiences, negotiated through different layers of meanings, interpretations, and prospects. Instead of figuring out aligned words that ignite thoughts, once formed in another time and place, in visible characters in the great mythical book of history, we choose the density of discursive practices, systems establishing what is said as if it were the deed 14 13 As is it known, despite its persistence over the past four decades, Cova da Moura has been the target of several institutional and private actions aimed at its demolition. In 2006, 78% of the population expressed a desire to stay in the area according to a survey conducted by the Faculty of Architecture of Lisbon. However, reports commissioned by the CMA suggest 80% of demolitions in the built fabric of the neighbourhood (Lopes, 2020). 14 Institution here entails a more comprehensive conception than the conventional domains established within the scope of nation-states and modern societies. It mainly refers to structures or mechanisms of a social order, which regulates behaviour of a group of individuals within a given community . Speeches that are established as events, with their own conditions and mastery of appearance, and things, with their own possibilities and fields of use. According to Foucault, all the elements that make up the systems of declarations, events or things are defined as archives (2002, p. 104). The permeability of the archive is paradoxical, and it comprises, in the first place, expanded discourse - interpenetrated interpretive layers encompassing archival institutions and their role in Western societies - as well as the plurality of narratives that depend on it. Second, this penetrability describes a fluid practice or experience. And, thirdly, it does not expend the necessary efforts to represent the emerging social practices derived from the changing archival institutions (Ivacs, 2012, p. 471-2). Although this reference is peripheral, it reminds us the historical conjunctures which understanding is essential to apprehend the occurring transformations in the process’ development. Let us report back to the last forty years. They were marked by the fall of Berlin wall (1989); the collapse of the Soviet Union (1991); and the crisis of ideologies in Western societies. The so-called crisis surrounding the fallibility of the exclusive reference to certain modalities of reason, as a sine qua non condition for understanding the world through totalizing schemes, has given the planet's dominant forces a turning point in the socio-cultural and aesthetic. In the Euro-American academic centres, concerns revolved around national identity based on popular and/or working-class culture, but also, on the issues raised by the increasing immigration flows from the former colonies. In the context of the 1990s, a “new” irreversible process of “reckoning with the past” began. This was multiculturalism process, which has proven to be more complex than believed. And, despite the explicit efforts undertaken by the old imperial regimes in order to erode/destroy the traditional archives of previously subjugated nations, these have been transformed and gained an increasing voice as “the undeniable truth of past sins and sufferings” ( ibid .). According to Jacques Derrida, the narrative, in scientific discourses concerning the difficulty of interpreting archives as cultural and physical phenomena is not new. However, after “Archive Fever: a Freudian impression” (1995), most of the critical approaches to the treatment of archives have focused on the epistemological doubt about fragmented and biased storage by these institutions. It is undeniable that nowadays diverse voices are rising claiming new archives, while the technological and informational revolution participates and structurally reconfigures the nature, features, credibility, and authorship of the archives. Through wars, ethnic conflicts, and genocides provided by the maintenance of colonial imperial systems during the 20th century; cataclysms, epidemics, and, pandemics that we have been mask-facing in this millennial transition, we have learned that it takes a Volume XXI Issue V Version I 8 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2021 C © 2021 Global Journals Kola San Jon De Cova Da Moura : An Instrumental Case of Intangible Cultural Heritage Safeguarding in the African Diaspora in Portugal