O Maranhão é Aqui! Sociabilidades e Identidades no Bairro Santa Luzia, Boa Vista-RR

Abstract

This research resulted from an analysis of the context of pluralities in which the State of Roraima was formed in several phases, predominantly composed by the migratory process. From this perspective, the end of the Federal Territory period – in the second half of the 1980’s and early 1990’s - is highlighted, when there were significant population contingents that responded to the calls to migrate due to mineral exploration in gold-digging or by the installation of the new State, among them maranhenses, specially the dwellers of the borough of Santa Luzia, in the western part of the capital Boa Vista, structured by the referred demand and understood as a privileged locus of the present investigation, of a qualitative and intentional nature thought as urban ethnography. Therefore, the identity question and the forms of sociability of these migrants, coming from different municipalities of Maranhão, were adopted as object of study. The life histories of the selected counterparts subsidized analyzes based on the methodological recommendations of participant observation, for which collection instruments were used as semi-structured interviews, flowing narratives to highlight the context of/in the city. Thus, it was possible to study the relations and/or tensions resulting from interactions in the daily life of these social actors. It was also understood the influence of cultural manifestations of the place of origin, which seem to promote a return, by means of symbolic roots, to reaffirm the identity of these migrants, in view of the intentions that have come to justify a festive event - Arraial dos Maranhenses O Maranhão é aqui! - which promotes sociability in the borough. Therefore, it should be asserted that the maranhense identity in Roraima is confirmed in the difference, while at the same time influences substantively the plural context in which migrants are inserted, considering the systems that support contemporary identities.