português Between open doors

collective memory and self-formation in biographical narratives of a university dormitory

Abstract

This article, using an autobiographical ethnographic approach, analyzes the sociability experienced in the student housing of the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro as a space that shapes individual and collective identities, in which memory, materiality, and coexistence operate as central devices for the production of belonging. Engaging with Halbwachs, we see memory as socially constructed, while with Rocha and Eckert we consider collective memory as duration, fabulation, and imagined experience. Reinheimer 's reflections allow us to analyze student housing as a morally regulated social form in which processes of inclusion/exclusion are rehearsed. The text also contextualizes the housing experience within the process of institutional expansion and diversification of UFRRJ, highlighting the impacts of access and retention policies on the student profile. By articulating memory, trajectory, and materiality, I argue that housing is not reduced to a welfare policy, but constitutes a collective body in which individual experiences become narratable and intelligible, producing marks on the trajectories of former residents.