A festa da Juçara no Maracanã: reunindo tradições e identidades sob a perspectiva do patrimônio imaterial (1971-1985)

Abstract

The Maracanã neighborhood is located in the rural area of São Luís do Maranhão, considered one of the oldest neighborhoods in the capital. The Maracanã community has become popularly known as a space for different cultural events, among which the Festa da Juçara stands out, held since the 1970s. This study sought to analyze the Festa da Juçara in Maracanã as intangible heritage and the construction of this tradition in the cultural landscape of Maranhão identity between the years 1971 and 1985, aiming to contemplate the approach of Oral History for the analysis surrounding the memories and identity relations with the festival today. The methodological approach adopted necessarily involved: bibliographic research, with the survey of academic productions in articles, books and book chapters, dissertations, theses, among others; The documentary research, conducted based on records from the Public Archive, the newspapers O Imparcial and Jornal do Dia/O Estado do Maranhão from the Benedito Leite Library, as well as documents made available by the Historical and Geographical Institute of Maranhão (IHGM), also employed the methodology of Oral History, considering the narratives of the interlocutors as forms of life testimonies. The target audience of this study was the merchants of the festival, highlighting these statements in conjunction with written sources to understand the context of this celebration in the past and present. Starting from the premise that different festive spaces with less media exposure are threatened by the advance of capitalism, it would be inaccurate to say that they are doomed to disappear. For this reason, the study engages with the body of authors associated with "Subaltern Studies". Among the prominent figures in this historiographical trend are Indian scholars: Dipesh Chakrabarty, Partha Chatterjee, Ranajit Guha, David Hardiman, Sudipta Kaviraj, Gyanedra Pandey, and Gyan Prakash. These authors offer theoretical reflections on the agency of subalternized individuals/groups – and here I also emphasize a subalternized cultural representation, transformed in the face of the dictates of big capital – in the face of the challenge to a history viewed from a national and universalist perspective.