Regionalism in Portugal: How cultural heritage makes a difference in the global context

The European Union is a transnational space, composed of national communities that are culturally and socially heterogeneous. In this context, all of these communities are invented and reinvented permanently as different cultural places within a global space. It is a process where heritage and museology acquires a prominent place in the cultural diversity affirmation inside Europe.

Although considered an example of political administrative centralism, Portugal is also, like other European countries, divided into regions. These regions, devoid of political power, remain in the minds of local leaders as cultural representations. In this article, I intend to analyse these leaders’ discourses and claims regarding the Leiria region. They use the cultural heritage as a resource to build discourses about regional identity.