THE HANDMADE PRODUCTION OF LIME IN THE SECOND DISTRICT OF CARUARU – PE: work culture and the cultural landscape in Povoado do Juá 1950-1980
Work culture, Cal, Social history of culture
The artisanal production of lime was an economic activity present in part of the Second District of Caruaru for a good part of the 20th century. Its economic importance attracted and absorbed men and women of different ages to explore the natural resources that were the basis for transforming lime into kilns. The intensification of this activity in the lives of people and communities in the region was capable of modifying one of the most characteristic elements of a social group, culture. That which, under the eyes of authors such as E. P, Thompson, is understood as an integral part of what is carried out and validated by the members of a society, something shaped by their experiences and needs - giving us the opportunity to see it through the concept of Culture of Labor. There are many effects collected as a result of what these characters exerted in the past, but we present two as central: the memories, which, from Halbwachs' perspective, became collective memories; and the cultural landscape, shaped by the hunger of the kilns, which motivated the widespread exploitation of natural resources; the landscape bears marks that are also shared memories between man and nature, as conceived by Menezes and Ribeiro. These concepts are used in this work to interpret the speeches of members of the Juá community who worked in the artisanal production of lime, in the period from 1950 to 1980, whom we recognize as agents and protagonists of history – people who never had the opportunity to be recognized through the lens of history, or another science, making this proposal more necessary not to lose the plots of this history to oblivion.