The border at present: preservation of the Social Memory of La Raya

Currently, the Spain-Portugal interior border is a ghost border as a result of the integration of Spain and Portugal into the European Union, and the ancestral smuggling which was carried out for centuries and became a part of the economy, of habits and of daily life among the settlements of La Raya, has disappeared completely.

The dismantling of customs control posts and the free transit of people and goods across the old border do not mean that the political border between states has disappeared. Rather, what is happening is that, while long distance interchange has increased exponentially —especially the flow of capital and commerce —at the expense of local border economies, cultural and identity borders have been reinforced considerably. The traditional cultural landscapes, border culture and social memory itself have been diluted. Due to this, it is an unavoidable duty to make known the testimony of the common people, generally illiterate and anonymous, and of those left out of official history, to protect them from the passing of time and from oblivion, so as to leave a record of an essential part of the social memory of La Raya.