ENTERING THE OSWALDIAN HINTERLAND:

OF THE PAST IN THE ETHNOGRAPHIC ESSAYS OF OSWALDO LAMARTINE DE FARIA (1961 - 1988)

Abstract

This article discusses the uses of the past operated by Oswaldo Lamartine de Faria in his ethnographic essays on the hinterland of the Seridó, published between the 1960s and 1980s. The sertanist finds in the essay model a strategic space where to articulate, in his own way, experiences of life and writing. Oswaldian essayism registers the ethnography of a domination, conditioning the existence of the hinterland of the Seridó to the permanence of an elitist and conservative memory.