Mercado público de Porto Alegre: um espaço organizacional dividido entre o sagrado e o profano.[Porto Alegre Public Market: a space divided between sacred and profane]

This article aims at understanding and interpreting a local organizational space in the light of myth and rite notions dichotomized between profane and sacred. The organization studied is the Public Market of Porto Alegre, which besides being a shopping center – selling fish, craftmanship, fine spices, among others – is also one of the city sights and equally regarded as a cultural point for showing a number of artistic manifestations. The Market’s 132-year history gained meaning in the porto-alegrenses’ mind. The ethnographic method used to trace the ways of organizational symbolism allowed for the uncovering of a world that goes far beyond the trade utilitarianism. The place, regarded as sacred by Afro-Brazilian religions, presents the product purchased in there as hierophany. The identity of some families, who have been shopping at the Market for long, is renewed with the consumption ritual that passes down from generation to generation and is in consonance with low cost, quality, and good service myths. The Market still holds the scatological myth of rebirth, since it survived floods, fires, and demolition threats.