Abstract

MEYER, Gustavo. Living in town and the invention of “culture”: development images designed from the countryside. Etnográfica [online]. 2019, vol.23, n.2, pp.359-390. ISSN 0873-6561.  https://doi.org/10.4000/etnografica.6810.

Based on the life histories of five people who left the countryside to live in the municipal town of Arinos (MG), we analyze how memories, signs and experiences of the transition to the city operate in processes of identity (re)construction that challenge the pejorative image cast on the origin and ways of life of countryside people. In parallel, the invention of “culture,” resulting from the recent circulation of positive values associated to folk traditions, including rural ones, marks the configuration of an artistic-cultural field in which local groups linked to a contesting actors network participate in the designing of images that compete with a hegemonic idea of development.

Keywords : identity; anthropology of development; rural; life history.

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