Portuguese Saudade, the Trajectories of Longing and Desire

Abstract

Saudade is interpreted as an ethereal concept dear to the Portuguese people. This intangible idea is often identified with a Portuguese cultural value signifying elusive states of longing, yearning, and wistfulness. This article demonstrates how the spatial realm of a former Portuguese colony, Macau, is experienced through the lens of saudade as an eluding, incorporeal, and culturally meaningful concept. The main goal of this research is to analyze the lived experiences of the Portuguese community in Macau shaped by emotional trajectories of the postcolonial city. This study continues the tradition of anthropological interpretations based on philosophical phenomenology. Anthropologically grounded phenomenology gives priority to acknowledging people’s formulation of experiences vis-á-vis specific cultural settings. It is an extension of “radical empiricism.” The article works with the concept of saudade to analyze the modalities of sensory perception within the former Portuguese city. Saudade is used as a discursive formation to look at cultural and epistemological manifestations of daily urban lived experiences of the Portuguese people in Macau.