Cartas a Papai Noel: confissões autobiográficas

Abstract

This research used Christmas letters sent by children, youth and adults from the State of Paraíba to the Postal and Telegraph Company of Brazil through its social program entitled “Papai Noel dos Correios” [Post Office's Santa Claus], 2009 version. In that year, ten thousand (10,000) letters were not included in the program. They represent the universe of study and analysis of this research, which considers the letters as a source of information and memory and aims to understand how the senders of the letters reveal themselves through this practice of self writing, highlighting the identity, the representations of Santa Claus, their cultural practices as well as the memorialistic aspects, based on the articulation between the identity and the representations. The methodological resource adopted is the Ginzburg's evidentiary perspective (1990) associated with the Bardin's content analysis. This research revealed, through the discourses evidenced in the Christmas letters, an identity and a social and collective representation by the correspondents concerning this character of the modern material culture, the Santa Claus.