Os (des)encantos da água: cultura material e teatralização política em Campina Grande (1930-1960).

Abstract

The following research aims to make intelligible a study of the material culture in Campina Grande (PB) between the years 1930 and 1960, specifically about water and how this improvement was inserted into the plot of the drama of power in the State. We understand that with the construction of the water supply system from the dam of Vaca Brava (Areia - PB), there was no trivialisation of water and its consumption did not happen in the same way for different social groups during the study period, but, we investigated how the implantation of this suplly system generated new concerns and readjusted the community relationship at the time that campinenses had been involved with the modernity discourses. From some evidences, we aim to elucidate how this materiality was also in the plot of the dramatization policy, ie how in different political cultures, the presence or absence of water served to justify the deconstruction / construction of a political power and how these modernization measures were presented in policies plots. Therefore, we gave priority to the press in order to analyze the representations made since the period of the interventor Argemiro de Figueiredo until the end of the government of José Américo, both with regard to the situation of the waters of the city, as about policy disputes and interests involved with these improvements. Thus, it was possible to understand how the State government undertook works of water supply in the city and how they were suitable for the symbolic elaboration of the power.