A (re)invenção da identidade do mauesense: festa do Guaraná, memórias e histórias

Abstract

This research investigates how and in what way the Guaraná Festival in the municipality of Maués, in the Amazon, can contribute to the preservation or invention of the Mauesense identity. Therefore, we seek to understand the process that gave rise to the municipality of Maués and how guaraná became a reference in local cultural production. In the course of the festivities, we asked about the importance of cultural movements, percussionists of the Guaraná Festival, for the maintenance of traditions, such as the riverside, guaraná producer, and responsible for maintaining the practical, symbolic aspects of the celebrations as well as being used by the public authorities, aspects of Mawé cosmology in the invention of the Mauesense identity. To do so, we analyzed the identity formation process of the Mauesense people, related to the cultural production of guaraná, perceiving and describing the different meanings of drinking guaraná, analyzed as a reframed expression of the Mauesense social groups. The cultural activities surrounding the Guaraná Festival allow a reflection in two ways: the theoretical assumptions of the research dialogue with the debate on postmodern interculturality in the formation of identities linked to the territory; and the methodological path, taking into account a diversity of sources, takes place through the qualitative approach that allows us to relate to ethnographic research, enabling the continuous interpretative process. This was the paradigmatic idea used to elaborate forms of knowledge that allowed us to dialogue with the humanities, build stories, understand the construction of identities and understand cultural exchanges. The subjects involved in the interviews are people who participate in the experiences of cultural movements, teachers, artists, public managers, club coordinators, riverine people, entrepreneurs and students. The results reveal that the Mauesense identity is built on a diverse relationship of cultural exchanges between subjects of different shades and origins from different parts of the world. At the guaraná party, we noticed a speech in the performances in the quest to build a cultural homogeneity of ethnic origin, however, oblivious to the existing diversities in the history of local society. The thesis is part of the Research Line “Memory and Heritage”, of the Postgraduate Program in History at the Federal University of Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.