Haunting Narratives: the intangible beings in the historic buildings of Presidente Dutra in Porto Velho (RO)
memory; haunting; urban space; heritage; Porto Velho
This present work investigates, through ghost stories, the symbolic connections between memory, fear, and urban space in three historical buildings in the city of Porto Velho: the Palacio Presidente Vargas (now the Museu da Memoria Rondoniense), the building of the Rectory of the Federal University of Rondonia (formerly the Porto Velho Hotel), and the Mercado Cultural (formerly the Municipal Market). Based on the hypothesis that these stories, often treated as folklore, carry layers of collective memory and resistance, the research analyzes how they emerge among civil servants and visitors to these places, revealing hidden meanings and symbolic disputes. Drawing on the theoretical framework of the New Cultural History, the study emphasizes themes such as imagination, memory, and heritage, in dialogue with authors such as Jose D’ Assuncao Barros (2004, 2011, 2012), Michel de Certeau (1994), Sandra Pesavento (2006, 2008, 2012), Tim Edensor (2005), Jean Delumeau (1990) and Yi-Fu Tuan (2005, 2015). The interviews conducted throughout the research, treated here as oral sources, were fundamental to understanding how fear, silence, and forgetting relate to the ways in which people experience these buildings in their daily lives. In conclusion, ghost stories, far from being mere legends, function as tools for interpreting the city’s past and present, shaping how Porto Velho acknowledges, or silences, its own memories.