Tauromachie et géopolitique en péninsule Ibérique : la frontière Espagne/Portugal depuis l’arène

• Main Author: Jean-Baptiste Maudet
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• Published: Casa de Velázquez 2006-04-01
• Series: Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez
• Subjects: Bullfighting; Frontier; Iberian Peninsula; Portugal; Spain; Territorial dynamics
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/mcv/2661

Bullfighting in the Iberian Peninsula is at once a point of differentiation and an undeniable factor of cultural proximity between Spain and Portugal. In this ambivalent context bullfighting emerges as a complex identitary and territorial field of play in which myth and history are mobilised. Rooted in a traditional antagonism between the two bordering countries, their collective imageries readily pit Spanish bullfighting against Portuguese bullfighting. The present-day geographic and social reality of bullfighting in Spain and Portugal seems more complex in that styles become mixed and areas interwoven much more than one might think from a static comparison of bullfighting forms. In a context of European integration and growth of spatial mobility, bullfighting offers a peculiar perspective on the territorial dynamics of the Iberian Peninsula, marked by a growing difference in usages and perceptions of the frontier.