City, history, and memory: from a destroyed environment to a constructed one. A case study of Natividade da Serra, state of São Paulo, Brazil

Abstract

Between 1973 and 1974, the city of Natividade da Serra, state of São Paulo, was relocated in order to provide space to construct a hydroelectric dam for power generation. Based on the idea that the relationship between society and physical space acts to shape and influence the culture of a society, we conducted this study with the principal objective of analyzing the social impacts on the local community by highlighting the cultural transformations provoked by the restructuring of a space that was constructed over the period of a century. By conducting a qualitative analysis of data from the document repository of the City Hall and Parish of Our Lady of the Nativity (Nossa Senhora da Natividade), and from oral sources (descriptions collected through oral history), we elaborated a representative image of daily life in the city as it existed before the restructuring. This reconstruction started with the process of destruction and then proceeded to describe the reorganization of the community in the new space, as well as detailing perceptions of the city as a place that has passed through multiple historical experiences. By relating the data obtained from the written and oral sources to the historical context, we attempted to reveal the political, cultural, and ideological dimensions involved in this process of manipulation of inhabited space. We conclude that the innumerous implications caused by the abrupt transformation of this space has altered the customs and forms of sociability of the population. The analysis of the reasons and motivations for the disappearance of the city suggests that, even if only implicitly, this cultural transformation was desired by those who were in power in Brazil at that moment in time.