DOCUMENTARY PRACTICES OF THE SPECIAL ADVISORY FOR SECURITY AND INFORMATION AT THE FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF ESPÍRITO SANTO: RÉGIME OF INFORMATION AND MEMORY ASPECTS
Name: DANUBIA DE OLIVEIRA FLORINDO
Publication date: 30/07/2024
Examining board:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| GLEICE PEREIRA | Examinador Interno |
| JÓRIA MOTA SCOLFORO | Examinador Externo |
| LUCILEIDE ANDRADE DE LIMA DO NASCIMENTO | Examinador Interno |
| MAIRA CRISTINA GRIGOLETO | Presidente |
| PEDRO ERNESTO FAGUNDES | Coorientador |
Pages
Summary: The establishment of the National Truth Commission and the enactment of the Access to Information Law represented an important step for transitional justice in Brazil, even if belatedly. The Truth Commission of the Federal University of Espírito Santo aims to recover documents and memories of the military dictatorship involving students, faculty, and administrative staff of this university. Among the discoveries made possible through the documents recovered by this commission, we highlight the Special
Advisory for Security and Information of UFES (AESI/UFES). This body was instituted as a means of exercising power by the military government to surveil and monitor the academic community. This research proposes to investigate the dominant régime of information during the military government through the documentary practices of AESI/UFES, during its period of activity (1971-1983). To achieve our central objective, we will characterize the role of AESI at UFES in light of the dominant régime of
information in the Brazilian military government agencies, identify the documentary practices of AESI/UFES, considering the sociopolitical scenario of its period of operation, and discuss the information actions through the documents of AESI/UFES
in different spatial-temporal and functional dimensions, that is, in the period of their production to meet the intended purposes and in the present time as sources for understanding exercises of power and combating hegemonic discourses. Our theoretical basis for analysis will include the elements of the analytical information regime model by Maria Nélida González de Gómez and the properties of documentary practices evoked by Bernd Frohmann. Memory issues were brought up from the correlation identified between the elements of the information regime and the formulations for memory framing by Henry Rousso and Michael Pollak. These concepts underpin our inference about the emergence of a certain memory regime that acts concurrently with the régime of information in the process of constructing collective memories. This is a social, exploratory-descriptive research with a qualitative approach, which is instrumented by bibliographic research, documentary research, and content analysis proposed by Laurence Bardin. The analyzed documents demonstrate that the performance of AESI/UFES was deeply aligned with the dominant information regime in the Brazilian military government agencies, monitoring and controlling academic and social activities at the university, especially of professors and student members of student representation bodies, such as the Academic Directories. It reveals the layers of power underlying the documentary practices of this advisory body and reflects on the partiality of the social construction of collective memories, which we understand to be embedded in information policies, due to cultural, political, and economic factors. We point out some questions about the possible impacts of the performance of AESI/UFES on the dynamics of teaching and the production of knowledge during the military dictatorship and in contemporary times.
