Desvelando as trilhas e tramas de um processo social: diferentes leituras da patrimonialização da feira de Campina Grande (PB).

Abstract

The present work aims to analyze the process of registration of Campina Grande´s Farmers Market (PB), which lasted from 2007 to 2017. The registry is an instrument for the preservation of cultural heritage, established by the Brazilian cultural heritage Institute – Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional (IPHAN) –, which seeks to respect the dynamics and social process that produce the cultural goods, and to encourage the participation of the local community. Campina Grande´s Farmers Market, a place of memory that was born with the city of Campina Grande and which is reference for several “campinenses”, is also a place of economical, political and social disputes. It concentrates a complex of conflicting feelings and debates, diverse interests and opposing projects, which are revealed by its history and minor social processes, as in the case of the Farmers Market's patrimonialization. There is a administrative process of registration, created by IPHAN, which is part of the social process of changes and disputes in which the Farmers Market is inserted. To what extent does the registration process influence and is influenced by the structure of the relationships – interactions, memory, discourses and practices – established around the Market? How does the registration process reveal the social process in which it is embedded? How was the registration process established in the political field of the city? How has IPHAN's institutional practice taken place during these ten years of registration of the Farmers Market (2007-2017)? The methodology used to answer these questions consisted in the use of fieldwork, with the use of ethnography, more specifically, situational analysis (GLUCKMAN, 1987), research that included historical data, interviews with the snowball technique (in which the memory of some agents who participated in the registration process was included), and semi-structured interviews. Some other extremely important sources of research were the administrative processes that follow their courses in IPHAN and in the local Cultural Heritage Institute – Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico do Estado da Paraíba (IPHAEP) – which were able to present a kind of bureaucratic language, but also served to broaden and problematize the speeches about the process. This way, the text describes two social situations that illustrate the history of tension, disputes and political appropriations of the social space and, thus, the patrimonialization. Hence, the thick description (GEERTZ, 2008) of the administrative process of registration with its documents, administrative letters and technical opinions express once again the reflection of these disputes. Therefore, it can be seen that the social and historical processes through which the Farmers Market has undergone are reflected in its patrimonialization, where varied projects and interests (political, economical and social) are affected, sometimes modifying the course of the process, sometimes transforming the disputes in alliances that contributed to its outcome: the title of Brazilian Cultural Heritage.