Cultural societies, anonymous societies: economic issues of cultural spaces in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo (1904-1922)

Abstract

This project supports request for international research scholarship for the Research Foundation of the State of São Paulo (FAPESP), Brazil, complementary to the PhD project "Cultural societies, anonymous societies: economic issues of cultural spaces in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo (1904-1922)" currently in progress at the Department of Economic History from the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Humanities from the University of São Paulo (FFLCH-USP) under guidance of Dr. José Flávio Motta and co-supervision of Dr. Eduardo Morettin. Since the starting moment of our doctoral project, we had considered the possibility of making a research stage abroad. Due to the participation in a series of conferences and international events and, above all, a preliminary trip to France, undertaken in 2010, we were able to better outline our proposal. There are, in this sense, several reasons that motivate us to the proposal of a research stage at the Centre d'Histoire des Societes Culturelle Contemporaines of the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (CHCSC-UVSQ) under the supervision of Dra. Anaïs Flechet. First of all, we emphasize the interdisciplinary focus from the center. Our research deals with economic-historical reflection of cultural spaces in Brazil in the early twentieth century, working, therefore, in an area of theoretical interface. Through analytical incorporation of canonical authors in the field of cultural analysis - such as Pierre Bourdieu's discussion of the field of cultural production and Theodor Adorno's Culture Industry - we aim to comprehend the processes of economic accumulation in Brazilian cultural sectors in their relation with expanded social vectors. We wish to identify contact lines between local and international agents both within the phenomena of cultural massification and distinction. Our hypothesis is that the distinction-effects were stronger than the mass-effect in the local context. We can highlight, moreover, a second motivation for our proposal. Being a historical research heavily dependent on historical documentation, it is possible to envisage a series of potentialities of crossed documental analysis both in French and in Brazilian. There are particular expectations on the Jérôme Seydoux Archive collection, since the institution holds accounting documents from the Pathé Frères Company. There are complementarities between these documents with those already found on the Ferrez Family Archive, already worked on the Brazilian stage of our research. This is because the Marc Ferrez & Sons Co acted as an importer and sales agent of the Pathé Frères during the analyzed period. (AU)