TOURISM, MEMORIES AND DISPUTE IN AREIA/PB: THE CASE OF CASARÃO JOSÉ RUFINO

Abstract

This work aims to analyze the construction and selection of Casarão Solar José Rufino as an official space dedicated to the memory of Areia, a city located in the marshland of Paraíba. The city had a past closely linked to sugarcane plantations, raw material from the Santa Maria plant that operated from 1931 to 1992 in the region, when its bankruptcy was declared. From that moment of crisis in the agroindustry, Areia experiences a moment of transformations that drive non-linear reconversion projects, among which, the insertion of some social actors in activities linked to the development of tourism as an alternative for maintaining or improving their social position occupied until that moment. In this context, initiatives aimed at the symbolic valorization of rural areas emerge with proposals to rescue a certain vision of cultural heritage and promote places for the preservation of memory, as is the case of Casarão, the target of this research. As methodological resource, we used field research, during which the ethnographic method played an important role by enabling participant observation and interviews. We seek to demonstrate how this place is a space built by the local agrarian elite, highlighting the speeches and ways of showing the visiting public in the tourist context of a past of wealth and luxury, but which highlight the processes of disputes and negotiations that permeate this process of material and symbolic valorization.