Entre ruínas e memórias: declínio, privatização e abandono da estação ferroviária nova de Campina Grande-PB (1998-2019).

Abstract

The railroad was one of the greatest modern inventions of the 19th century, modifying the sensibilities in relation to the notion of time and space, in addition to allowing new habits, thoughts, and contributing to the economic, demographic, and cultural development of cities. The arrival of the railroad in the year 1907 in the city of Campina Grande enabled major changes; the rails marked the apogee of a new period, awakened trade, allowed the flow of cotton to ports in Brazil and the world and provided changes in the urban fabric. Fifty years after the inauguration of the first railroad, a new station is built, in opposition to the first one; Estação Nova emerged in a context of growing investment in road transport, as a result of the growth of highways, the railways gradually lost their strength, culminating in the privatization and disintegration of the Brazilian railway heritage. It is on the scenario of Estação Nova that we focus on with the objective of approaching the process of decline and abandonment caused by the privatization of the railway lines, as well as the impacts caused both in the heritage and in the lives of the workers of that station. For this, we resort to authors such as ARANHA (2007), ALMEIDA (1978), STAMPA (2011) and BERMAN (2007). Through the concept of PROST (1998) we intend to unite in a single set the discussions involving the social and cultural sphere, as well as the author, we believe that all history is inseparably social and cultural. In order to think about the history of Estação Nova, we used the memories of former railroad workers and local residents, iconographies, reports made available by the Paraíba railway union (SINTEFEP) and newspaper reports and blogs. The Railway Complex of Estação Nova even in the face of its public abandonment still pulsates with life, far from being a cemetery the ruins ruins that constitute this space allow to anchor the memories of its social actors, memories of life, work;, resistance, affectivity and sociability