The political dimension of the mediation of information in the archives of brazilian political parties: the case of the workers' party

Abstract

The mediation of information promotes the approximation between the information unit, the information professional and the informational subject as one of the goals is social protagonism. The mediation of information in its political dimension can be discussed within the scope of political parties. This article analyzes the mediation of information in the Workers’ Party (PT) Archive, in the Sérgio Buarque de Holanda Collection, of the Perseu Abramo Foundation. The Party has its origins in the context of the Military Dictatorship and the resistance to the military in power, fighting for rights and unions for better working conditions. The Perseu Abramo Foundation as a party institution assumes responsibility for reflecting on issues that affect the Workers' Party, as well as for the political training of its militants, leaders, and supporters. Thus, we aim to contribute to the consolidation of the PT project and of a new political culture in Brazil. We conducted a bibliographic research and qualitative analysis of materials retrieved from databases, journals, and conference proceedings. The Party files reveal that the fact of carrying out acts and demonstrations was repudiated by the military, mainly by the Department of Political and Social Order, which was one of the fiercest instruments of political repression used during the Regime. At that time, the persecution of unions, social movements, collectives, and resistance movements was common. The archivist, the mediator subject in the archives, needs to have the knowledge of its users, in the case of users of archives of political parties, while there are also specific needs, such as a great knowledge of documentation, research instruments, and the production context. In the case of the Party Archive, located at the Foundation, the archivist needs knowledge of the organizational structure and research instruments in the archive, in addition to knowledge of the context of the users' life. Another important factor is the organization and preservation of the archive, to mediate information and promote access to users. We consider that the political mediation of information constitutes an essential element in the understanding of the Archive of the Workers’ Party, bringing to light the main historical facts that occurred in Brazil in the last 40 years, and that this approximation of political mediation with the Archive promotes social protagonism. In this article, we considered works on social protagonism which demonstrated the possibility of analyzing the Party's archives from the perspective of a political mediation of information. The Party Archive is rich in testimonies of the history of the Party.