Fragmented community memories in public libraries

Abstract

It presents the concept of 'fragmented community memories', aligning the categories of memory, community, and fragment. It emphasises memory as a social phenomenon and cultural component located between knowledges and knowledge, in the midst of subjective and intersubjective relationships marked by affections and crossings. It anchors the concept of memory to Benjamin's experience and emphasises the creative dimension of memory based on power structures. How can we recognise fragmented community memories as paths of resistance, production, experience, and creation in public libraries? poses itself as a problem and gives rise to the following general objective: to recognise fragmented community memories and their dynamics, understanding that they form their own resistance for community empowerment and tackling information poverty. It recognises the reality of communities on the periphery of Brazil, marked by social inequalities and a general lack of structure in a country that disregards history and memory as essential components in the construction of ways of existing. It points to infotechnological exclusion, its challenges, and problems in establishing new socio-cultural practices, moulding the shift from disciplinary logic to control (FOUCAULT, 1997); just like the shift from experience to living in Benjamin. All of this determines ways of life - of seeing, acting, remembering, and forgetting, propagating changes in the social field of memory and perception (Foucault, 2006; Benjamin, 2012). The research is defined as social, theoretical-empirical, exploratory, and qualitative, focussing on bibliographical research. It is possible to state that libraries help to transform the history of communities, provided that people take the lead in the domains of the past and present in order to illuminate the future. The concept of fragmented community memories positions the discussions on the concept of 'memory', admitting the complexity of writing about the concept of resistance, because it requires a series of elements that build the relationship between this and memory. Resistance is configured in the modes of production, experience, and creation of subjects, as long as they are linked to power structures. Salztrager and Gondar (2021) emphasise memory as an instrument of power, as a means of instituting norms and values, so it is also a place of resistance. (2013) points out that resistance is first in relation to power, so there is no power without resistance. Why "fragmented community memories"?  Because every political power aims to control memory, selecting what should be remembered or forgotten, so each memory and forgetting functions as a 'shard' of memory, and a sum of shards forms a Benjaminian mosaic. If power is productive and essentially produces subjectivity, Foucault argues that memories are produced, and this is where the research lies. And, above all, if these subjects (communities) participate in disputes (remembering-forgetting), the manipulation of memory functions as one of the greatest mechanisms for managing history and maintaining inequalities and informational poverty.