Campinas Jaguariúna railway: research on the identity of perception in a tourist train

Abstract

We are founded in the principle expressed in the Cultural Tourism Charter (ICOMOS, 1999) that cultural tourism is an activity that interacts with projects to preserve cultural heritage and its authenticity; consequently, our research problem is how the conservation of social memory (which is part of this authenticity) can be considered in tourism projects. To this general question, this study takes an active railway heritage, a tourist train that operates on a 25km route between the cities of Campinas and Jaguariúna (SP), in main goal to understand whether this tourist attraction is a way of preserving memories, local stories or traditions. Within this issue, we have specific objectives: to identify the memories about the old operation of Companhia Mogiana in the locality or surroundings; verify the importance that the community attaches today to the tourist train; identify whether the tourist train has material or symbolic characteristics related to the local and community history, or the local memories; to analyse whether the tourist attractiveness of Viação Férrea Campinas Jaguariúna considers aspects of that local history or social memory. In order to it, a theoretical and documentary review will be carried out and the values-based approach will be used, which has several fieldwork techniques in a way that aim to identify the perception of the community about the heritage in question. With this, it seeks to understand what importance the community attributes to the attraction and whether it feels represented with the railway heritage.