“Maracatu não é par, é ímpar”: práticas culturais, representações e identidades no maracatu rural de Pernambuco (2000-2014).

Abstract

Maracatu is a cultural expression with a significant presence in the state of Pernambuco. For a long time, productions about maracatu saw it as a homogeneous expression, whose origin was linked to the coronations of kings and queens congo. It is proposed to analyze how academic productions, group agency and public authorities contributed to the construction of representations of maracatu, and, more specifically, of Maracatu Rural, guided by an ideal of tradition. Until the work of Guerra Peixe (1955), groups of maracatu with different characteristics were not considered to exist: that of the baque virado (nation) and that of the loose baque (rural); so that the latter had long been considered a misrepresentation of the former. Through the qualitative approach, the use of the Oral History method was used, with interviews with members of Maracatu Rural groups from Pernambuco, in addition to the analysis of materials produced by the government, and academic studies on maracatu. The research makes it possible to understand Maracatu Rural as a living tradition, by calling into question concepts such as “identity”, “tradition” and “authenticity”, while giving voice to the representatives of the groups, covering the meanings attributed by them to the their cultural practices and problematizing the relations between groups and other cultural agents, considering, above all, public cultural policies in the period from 2000 to 2014.