Banca de DEFESA: GLAUBER PAIVA DA SILVA

FROM NEIGHBORHOODS AND CLUBS TO THE LARGEST SÃO JOÃO IN THE WORLD: THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF JUNE

 FESTIVE PRACTICES IN THE CITY OF CAMPINA GRANDE (1964-1986)

Saint John; Campina Grande; Cultural Practices.

The city of Campina Grande celebrates the mega-event known as the Largest Saint John Festival in the World for 30 days during the month of June. Created in the 1980s, the festival centralized the June celebrations in a specific nucleus and became the highlight of tourism in the state of Paraíba. This process of modifying cultural practices in June celebrations reinvented the ways of commemorating the saints' days in the city. Before municipalization, festivities took place in diverse locations throughout the city, with different social groups celebrating in their own ways. With this in mind, the purpose of our work would be to reflect on the transformations of festive practices during the June period in the city of Campina Grande. Celebrations and social spaces for commemorating the June period occurred in clubs and neighborhoods of the city before municipal authorities took control of the festival. Over the years, the centralization of the June celebration contributed to erasing from collective memory how June amusements and recreations were practiced in Campina Grande before institutionalization. Thus, we will analyze the period between 1964 and 1986, during which the celebrations were still entertainment and leisure for the citizens of this city, taking place in clubs, neighborhoods, and streets, until the officialization of the festival in a central nucleus by the city's municipality. To carry out this endeavor, we relied on documentary sources such as municipality documents, local newspapers, and photographs to discuss these transformations. We also employed discussions from some important authors for our reflection, such as Certeau (1980), who provided support through their concepts for the realization of our analysis. We emphasize the need for reflection on the subject since it represents a perspective and a period of Campina Grande that has not yet been addressed, leaving a gap in the local historiography. Despite possibly being the largest festival in the state of Paraíba, there still exists an unexplored space in local historiography for reflection on the practices of amusements and leisure during that period, the cultural practice transformations, and the strategies adopted by the municipality regarding the festival, which has become one of the largest in the country in our days.