Lugares de memória e saudade de um distrito submerso nas águas: Pedro Velho/PB (2002-2005).

Abstract

This text deals with places of memory and nostalgia for Pedro Velho, an old district, belonging to the city of Aroeiras - PB, submerged by the waters arising from the construction of the Argemiro Figueiredo Dam (Acauã), in 2004. Formative practices, sensitivity and memory that took place at 'São José Cemetery', 'Rio Paraíba' and 'José Cosme Irmão School', places chosen by us based on the recurrence in which they are cited as spaces of homesickness in oral narratives that we had access to. Among these spaces, we will deepen our look at the memories of the José Cosme Irmão School, which “pop out” in several speeches of the collaborators who were part of this research. Our time frame comprises the years from 2002 to 2005 and is justified – initially – by the year in which the district is informed of the completion of the Acauã Dam and later when the José Cosme Irmão School resumes its school activities, since its new building worked as a home for the homeless in the new district built to receive the people of Pedro. Theoretically, we will dialogue with the New Cultural History, through authors such as Pierre Nora, Sandra Pesavento, Durval Muniz de Albuquerque Júnior and Luciano Faria Filho, who respectively discuss the concepts of places of memory, sensibilities, pedagogies of nostalgia and school culture. Methodologically, this research is qualitative, historical and documentary, and moves through the memories of six narrators, subjects living in the old district. Music, photographs and newspapers also make up the documentary sources consulted, which will be analyzed in the light of the Oral History, a theoretical-methodological framework that also guides the path of this research. At the end of this work, we intend to contribute with records of a story not yet told about Pedro Velho, that takes memories and homesickness as a locus of research.The record of these sensitive memories and the stories that permeated Pedro Velho during the event of the arrival of the waters of Acauã are very rich sources for the debate of local history, as well as endorsing the historiography of education in Paraíba when dealing with the daily life of a school institution affected by the Dam. Argemiro Figueiredo.