Crossroads of memory in Lomba do Pinheiro: social practices and local heritage processes on the outskirts of the city of Porto Alegre, RS

Abstract

This article is about memory, heritage, power, environment, urban segregation and inequality. It was based on an ethnography of September 2007 to December 2009, on the east boundary of Porto Alegre-RS, a suburb called Lomba do Pinheiro. The research was my dissertation in PPGAS, UFRGS, in 2009. The subject of the research was to understand and interpret daily practices, forms of agency and memory settings of the inhabitants of Vila Elo Dourado, located on the sixth bus stop of the João de Oliveira Remião Road . From many comments made there I raised some issues about practices and speeches of different actors. I based them on the notions of communities of interpretation and ethical spheres by Luis Roberto and Roberto Cardoso de Oliveira. I also tried to reflect upon a particular aspect of the contemporary processes of creating a patrimony, a relevant aspect in my field of research, it was called 'the environmental issue', quoting José Sergio Leite Lopes, along with the growing preservation and conservation tendency of the so-called natural environment, even in areas of urban expansion.