Uncovering the Chácara and the Charqueada, through public archaeology

The aim of this thesis is to analyze the relationship between local and archaeological expertise in the construction of knowledge about the past, using an ethnographic method, and based on the concepts of public archeology and archaeological heritage. As a case study, I chose the archaeological site of \"Charqueada Santa Bárbara\", a fragment of an old plantation of charque production (jerked beaf) of the same name, in Pelotas/RS/Brazil. My research was associated to the project The Pampa Negro: Archeology of slavery in the southern region of Rio Grande do Sul (1780-1888), coordinated by Lucio Menezes Ferreira. Among so many themes identified by ethnography, I chose to talk about the history of women in Chácara Santa Bárbara. As tools of analysis, I followed the path of five particular concepts: social representation, memory, landscape, narrative, and agency. As a result, I advocate three essential points. First, public archeology must remain a branch of discipline concerned with producing critical knowledge about the past and an engaged political stance in the present while disallowing itself to be absorbed by marketing strategies. Second, heritage is a State category for space and social memory management. As such, it is not analogous to the affective relations developed between persons and things. Nonetheless, it gives archeology the power to help define social conditions and stories that will be represented in the archaeological heritage, and we must use that power to show critical and socially responsible versions of the past. Finally, according to these premises, I tried to produce a recent historical narrative about the residents who still live at Charqueada Santa Bárbara. For that, I analyzed their daily material culture, which were more representative of their life stories, and of more critical pictures of Pelotas\' past. (AU)