Políticas culturais e arquivos públicos: difusão cultural, acesso e preservação do patrimônio cultural em Minas Gerais – 1995-2005

Abstract

The actual study is the result of a research which aims at analyzing the Cultural Politics of the last decade of the twentieth Century, more precisely 1995-2005 in Minas Gerais State focusing the Public Politics for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage, espacially those related to the collection of documents preserved in archival institutions. The main hypothesis is that although Public Archives count with juridical-financial support those entities have served exclusively for its adapting to the new demanding of the cultural market. That market is regulated, in special by the “Laws of Cultural Support” and therefore they do not serve as a stimulator to new interlocution between the State and the Civil Society. Nevertheless those laws allow in some measure the access to culture and archival information to publics that are not very familiarized with the archival universe. Our thesis is that an increase in the visibility of the Archives was the result of the actions previewed in the new Brazilian Juridical Ordinances starting on the 1988 Constitution. It has guaranteed to the Citizens the Constitutional Right of access to information assuring this practice as a duty of the State; as well as the publicity of its actions, administrative transparency and; on considering the Archives as an important support of memory. It is also an investigation focus of this research to understand the limits and the effective participation of Civil Society, characterized here as Cultural Associations and the Society of Friends of the Archives, as far as those entities work as structures of support in the management of Cultural Institutions. In particular considering them in reference to the partnership between those entities and the Archives. Its multiplying since the decade of 1990 have promoted certain dynamism in those institutions.