Uma pioneira do folclore: Mariza Lira e a participação feminina no Movimento Folclórico Brasileiro (1930-1950).

Abstract

The Brazilian Folklore Movement refers to a group of intellectuals who, in the mid-20th century, sought to value folklore as scientific knowledge, as a field of study and research around popular knowledge. Its organization and activities around the National Commission of Brazilian Folklore, in 1947, are known through the study by Rodolfo Vilhena (1997). However, specific studies on the participation of each intellectual within the Folklore Movement, especially female participation, remain to be carried out. We can highlight the intellectual performance of Maria Luiza Lira de Araújo Lima, known as Mariza Lira (1899- 1971), who was part of the aforementioned Movement, when she intensified her research into popular music and Portuguese-Brazilian approaches, writing works such as Brasil Sonoro (1938), Chiquinha Gonzaga: great Brazilian popular composer (1939), Achegas for the history of folklore in Brazil (1953) and Por Terras de Portugal (1956). From the point of view of folkloric representation, due to the lack of female visibility at that time, Mariza Lira was one of the few women who stood out in this Movement. Therefore, it is necessary to study gender discourses to understand how women were incorporated into the field of scientific knowledge around the so-called popular culture. We base our theoretical analyzes on the perspective of Bonnie Smith (2003), when she questions the place of gender relations in the professionalization of scientific knowledge. In the field of popular culture, we will use the definitions discussed by Burke (2005) and Chartier (1995) . In methodological terms, we analyzed periodic sources, books and articles available in the Digital Newspaper Library of the National Library and the National Center for Folklore and Popular Culture, through Luca (2005) and Foucault (1997), analyzing the speeches produced in the decades from 1930 to 1950, years of vast publications on Lira's intellectual scene. With this analysis, based on Mariza Lira's performance, we hope to understand the social and cultural place of women in the Brazilian Folklore Movement and, consequently, in the formation of Brazilian social thought itself.