Images of a sensible past: Cangaço memory forms in public, personal and digital archives

• Autor(a) principal: Ramos Filho, Vagner Silva
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Esboços (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/esbocos/article/view/2175-7976.2020.e70797

This paper reflects on distinct forms of memory regarding the Cangaço – a social banditry phenomenon in the Northeast of Brazil – as a presumedly sensitive national topic. The paper’ structural issue is the transformation of Cangaço by techical media forms, which have turned their attention to images of the bodily remains of the cangaceiros amidst the context of globalized expansion of culture and memory that started in the final decades of the 20th century. In each section, the article raises a simultaneous debate on memory policies linked to distinct filing techniques, emphasizing some cangaço cases; the singularities of the public, personal and digital files most widely disseminated in the public scene in connection with the topic; and the status of photographic images that highlight the cut-off or mumified heads of the cangaceiros. This research is based on Cultural Memory, Archive Theory and Visual Culture, stressing how these fields rethink their epistemological approaches in dialogue with the virtual media. It then brings some propositional notes as contributions to the contemporary agenda, in the attempt to reach beyond the national issue and touch wider, global aspects in terms of historical investigation.