What objects make us do: communicative practices and the production of place in urban markets

Práticas comunicativas e produção do lugar nos mercados urbanos

Abstract

This article examines the role of objects in the everyday communicative practices of Braga Municipal Market, seeking to understand how they participate in the production of the market as a lived place. Drawing on a conception of communication as situated practice and on an ethnographic approach informed by sensory ethnography, the study explores how people, objects and space are articulated in the organisation of everyday market life. Based on fieldwork conducted between 2021 and 2022, it shows that fresh produce, religious images, domestic utensils and architectural features participate in distinct ways in the observed practices: they organise sensory experience, extend interactions, make market stalls habitable and reconfigure the uses of collective space. The analysis demonstrates that place emerges not only from the market’s material configuration or the intentions embedded in its design, but also from the communicative practices through which vendors, customers and objects continuously produce forms of sociability, care, belonging and spatial appropriation. The article thus contributes to understanding the production of place as a communicative process that brings together people, objects and space.