Forging heritage in fieldwork: travels and missions in Brazil and Africa

The article analyzes travelling as a way to organize and structure visions about heritage in two situations: the IPHAN architects' missions in Brazil and the Portuguese anthropologists' campaigns in Africa for the Institute of Overseas Studies, during the 1950s and 1960s. Both were intended to get to know and protect heritage from threats of loss, given the intense modernization presented at the time as responsible for its destruction. Some work routines established during these trips produced scientific methods that are presented here. They are methods employed to see and collect (records and materials), to assure existence and consecrate things or practices as cultural heritage.

Keywords:
cultural heritage in Brazil; ethnographic museum in Portugal; African artifacts; travelling and fieldwork; lusotropicalism