Banditismo e práticas culturais: a construção de uma justiça popular

Abstract

This article approaches the recurring presence within Portuguese Historiography of a character – Zé do Telhado – who simultaneously occupies the roles of thief and hero. He analyzes the construction and reproduction of a memory intertwined with fiction and reality, which consists of an ensemble of values related to the way thieves are turned into heroes, however remaining in the condition of an “outlaw”. The author discusses the representations of social actors whose lives are set up within a “world of contraventions”, and thus seen as “popular folk heroes” or leading figures of a “parallel justice”.