Postgraduate Program in History

Memory Policies and Historical Narratives

The proposal of this Line is centered on the investigation regarding how the History of the Present Time is crossed by formal mechanisms that seek to orientate or mediate social processes of constitution of memories (getting to conform policies), as well as by different forms of production, circulation, and dissemination of historical narratives.

Regarding the memory policies, it seeks to focus, in particular, on the initiatives for the constitution, dissemination, and control of memories by the public power, either through the legal order (the so-called “memorial laws”), or through the action of specific state bodies (such as those dedicated to cultural heritage, education and the arts). Furthermore, it intends to promote studies about the memory policies engendered by other social actors, in interaction or opposition to the agencies of the public power, such as, for example, mass media or entities linked to organized civil society. Simultaneously, it also aims to study the social processes of memory production in interaction with the uses of the past and with the formulation of historical narratives, whether or not generated within institutions formally linked to historiographical production. As a consequence, it also intends to adopt analytical perspectives that contemplate reflections in the field of the history of historiography.

In this sense, the line is particularly in tune with studies on: contemporary memory disputes or battles (also called “competitive memories”); the various ways of dealing with traumatic or “difficult” memories (in order to involve, among others, the practices that are present in institutions of imprisonment/kidnapping, as well as their power/knowledge relations); the claims for symbolic compensation made by victims of authoritarian regimes; the strategies of consecration of characters, sites (urban or rural), and public or private collections, through instruments of investing heritage status such as listing, record, registration, and inventory; the historical narratives transmitted in print, sound, film or videography means more directly associated with the memory demands of social groups and historically subordinated peoples, open to decolonial perspectives.