A patrimonialização cultural de arquivos no Brasil.

Abstract

The object of analysis of this thesis is the cultural patrimonialization of archives in Brazil. The investigation aims to comprehend the establishment process of the Brazilian archival cultural heritage, considering its political, social, historical and technical dimensions. In this sense, the study aims to identify social agents involved in patrimonialization, as well as their practices, discourses and actions. A critical debate about the process of patrimonialization of archives in contemporaneity is proposed. The object is investigated from an essencially historical perspective, guided by the dialetic method, characterized as qualitative and inductive. The investigation was carried out through the research and analysis of a vast set of primary sources (reports, legal devices, oficial publications, testimonies, etc.) and secondary sources (academic papers, most of all). Such sources were produced by the social agents themselves during the patrimonialization process. The research focuses on national scope of the process and and the period from 1808 to 2018. Hence, he origin and main agents of cultural patrimonialization of archives in the Brazilian history are analyzed, mainly under the institutional point of view. Concluding, the patrimonialization gestures are analyzed, highlighting five performative acts that compose the general scheme proposed to comprehend the above mentioned process: a) acquisition (that may be in the forms of purchasing, donation or lending); b) collection (which may be compulsory or upon evaluation); c) oficial classification as cultural heritage; d) declaration of social and public interest; and e) recognition by the program World Memory. Therefore, the study evidences that performative acts of cultural patrimionialization of archives in Brazil may assumir custodial or declaratory characteristics and are characterized, as well, by their opacity, endogeny and discontinuities. In addition, acts are characterized by three essential historical traces: the “atrophied hipertrophy” of the Brazilian State, the incidence of exceptionalities and the presence of constant deadlocks about the value attributed to archives. Finally, analysis about gestures, acts, forms, chacateristics and traces reveal multiple paths that lead to reflect about such theme. And that may be the starting point for future investigations.