Gritos, gagueiras e sussurrosdiscurso do poder e poder do discurso no novo Museu do Ipiranga

Resumo

This study departs from a singular situation in the Brazilian museological landscape: the rare opportunity to reformulate a major museum following its complete closure. This circumstance was experienced by the teams of the Museu do Ipiranga, a branch of the Museu Paulista of the University of São Paulo since the 1960s, with the emergency closure to visitors in 2013. During nine years away from its audiences, the first and most visited museum in São Paulo encountered the opportunity to restructure its spaces and redesign its exhibitions in view of the bicentennial of Independence, the deadline for its reopening. The realization of the “New” Museu do Ipiranga required not only the establishment of a complex interinstitutional governance structure, bringing together the university, state and federal governments, and funders, but also a reflection on the very role of this museum. To interpret these developments, the problematization guiding this study begins with the identification of two distinct registers of action upon cultural heritage in Brazil that are at once opposed and coexisting. On the one hand, there is strong technocratic pressure, which establishes the primacy of specialist knowledge in heritage matters. On the other, there is a persistent democratizing tension that promotes greater participation and inclusion. During the reopening process these two forces converged to produce a “New” Museum. We thus ask: how does the tension between technocratic and democratizing discourses and practices operate in the everyday life of the “New” Museu do Ipiranga? To address this question, we draw on the premises of cultural materialism and propose the notion of performative cacophony in order to capture the idiosyncrasies of this case. With this theoretical–empirical framework, the objectives of this research are: (1) to contrast different conceptions of cultural heritage that have guided the actions of the Museu do Ipiranga since its consolidation as a historical museum; (2) to investigate the implementation of the “New Museu do Ipiranga” project, focusing on the discourses and practices of the agents involved in this process; (3) to identify different languages of public action that coexist within the Museum, emphasizing distinct ways of understanding and working with cultural heritage; (4) to distinguish, within this diversity of languages of action, discourses and practices associated with technocratic registers from those linked to democratizing registers; and (5) to use the case of the “New” Museu do Ipiranga to reflect on the possibilities of democratizing projects in the field of cultural heritage. At the conclusion of the research, we are able to understand the ways in which different registers of action upon cultural heritage coexist and interact, and how the Museu do Ipiranga balances technocratic pressures and democratizing forces.

Ficha do documento

Tipo

Tese

Ano

2026

Instituição

Fundação Getulio Vargas

Fonte

Repositório da FGV

Idioma

Português

Acesso

Acesso aberto

Identificador

oai:repositorio.fgv.br:10438/38584

Temas

Administração PúblicaGovernança

Palavras-chave

Patrimônio culturalAção públicaMuseu do IpirangaTecnocraciaIntelectuaisCultural heritagePublic actionTechnocracyIntellectualsAdministração públicaMuseu PaulistaParticipação socialPoder (Ciências sociais)