Destinos migrantes: representações simbólicas, histórias de vida e narrativas

Abstract

This article presents the results of a research that has been conducted since 1995 about memory and narrative production of migrants from the backlands of Rio Grande do Norte state now established in the state capital Natal, more specifically in the northern part of the city, the “Zona Norte”. The text initially presents the process of Zona Norte formation and the migratory phenomena of the region, before analysing stories told by the migrants. If the traditional narrative corpus tends to disappear in the urban context, on the other hand new themes emerge. Therefore, through analisys of the migrants narrative production it is possible to evaluate transformations of ‘traditional culture’. The article aims to show that the importance given to the so called “yesterday histories” (“histórias de antigamente”) and the references to these narratives depend of people’s situation in their new locality