PAISAGEM E PATRIMÔNIO CULTURAL:

Oswaldo de Souza, os fluxos de memória e o marco de touros no litoral potiguar na década de 1960

Abstract

This research is being developed in the Postgraduate Program in History and Spaces at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), in which I investigate the heritage policy established during the administration of Oswaldo de Souza at the head of the Directorate of National Historical and Artistic Heritage in Rio Grande do Norte (DPHAN-RN), in the 1960s. In this communication, in particular, I will analyze one

aspect of this heritage policy, based on the actions of Oswaldo de Souza in relation to Marco de Touros, which gained notoriety among actions promoted by this agent. Listing, protecting and preserving was not considered sufficient, it was decided to remove this colonial monument to the Forte do Reis Magos, in Natal, so that, allegedly, it would receive effective preservation. This measure, carried out in 1962, displeased the population of Touros and caused moments of conflict between property servants and the local population. This tension was only resolved 9 years later, when a replica of the monument was manufactured to be located on Marco beach, in Touros. This brings into debate the uses and meanings of memory for DPHAN agents and for the population that relates to the heritage asset. We will analyze this issue based on the concepts of “landscape and memory flows”, proposed by Simon Schama, in Paisagem e Memória (1995). In this book, the author discusses the existence of monuments that have an origin aimed at certain purposes, however, due to their resistance to time, the uses and meanings attributed and, in many cases, lack of knowledge of the representations of these material assets, they gain different projections from those that they initially had. Methodologically, we analyzed the report that Oswaldo de Souza sent to DPHAN; and two interviews given by Souza, in which the conflicting case is discussed: the first given to the newspaper Poti, on September 1, 1968; and the other to the University TV program Memória Viva, in 1983, later published in a book, in 1998.