Memory, identity and digitization of cultural heritage: the legacy of the Folkloric Research Mission in Brazil

Abstract

The article rescues an unprecedented and visionary initiative. In 1938, Mário de Andrade notes the need to register popular cultural events at the risk of disappearing with the country's growing urbanization and sends a team to the North and Northeast of Brazil for the Folk Research Mission. The group brings together a legacy through sound and audiovisual records. After more than sixty years, the material was digitized and today it is one of the most important Brazilian cultural records. The study points out this diligence as a precursor in search of a preservationist conscience on Brazilian soil, since it advocates the importance of registering materials on cultural heritage and its enormous relevance for the preservation of memories and identities. In this way, the objective of the article is to highlight the new procedures for the conservation, dissemination and diffusion of cultural heritage in contemporary times. The methodology used is to analyze both the formatting of a physical product with digitized materials, and the development of a web platform with significant possibilities for the preservation and diffusion of cultural heritage. The study uses the theory of late modernity to talk about the continuity of traditions that are reincorporated and reinvented in cyberspace. The research results seek to broaden the debate about the importance of digitizing documents on cultural heritage and their consequent preservation. It is concluded, therefore, that digitalization can become a repository capable of conserving and disseminating the cultural values of a heritage, contributing to the preservation of memories and the formation of identities.