Instituto Histórico e Geográfico do Rio Grande do Norte: locus da identidade potiguar e preservação da memória nacional

Abstract

This work aims to understand how the Historical and Geographic Institute of Rio Grande do Norte has performed the practices of preservation, organization and dissemination of national memory, in order to facilitate the access and effective use of the information contained in the documentary records under its custody. For this, the custodial and postcustodial paradigms developed by Armando Malheiro and Fernanda Ribeiro in the scope of Information Science were used as theoretical support. The research is a case study of a qualitative nature and of bibliographic and documentary nature that uses content analysis as a methodological procedure to treat the collected data. When understanding memory as a field of study of Information Science, we consider that it arises in the field of Philosophy and Psychology, and that, later, it is incorporated by the Social Sciences, which come to understand memory from a broad and collective perspective. Thus, in view of the multiple possibilities of carrying out work in the field of memory, it is to understand the social role played by institutions of memories in maintaining social identities. We contextualize the creation of the Historical Institute of Paris in the first half of the 19th century and its process of transnationalization to other distant regions. By expanding its territorial limits, it was possible to create other memorial institutions responsible for contributing to the strengthening of national memory, such as the Brazilian Historical and Geographic Institute, in 1838, and the Historical and Geographic Institute of Uruguay in 1843. We propose a concept of national memory and we analyze its interface with racial issues in the Brazilian space. We portray the historical context that motivated the creation of the Historical and Geographic Institute of Rio Grande do Norte at the beginning of the 20th century and the process of forming the collections that make up the Archive, Library and Museum. As a result of the research, we present which aspects of preservation, organization, access and use have been undertaken by the Historical and Geographic Institute of Rio Grande do Norte in recent years, with the purpose of contributing to the post-custodial practices existing in the Memory Institutions. We consider, based on the elements presented, that the Historical and Geographical Institutes are important locus of memory that must be preserved and preserved for future generations.