Banca de DEFESA: Diana Dianovsky

DOING ANTHROPOLOGY WHILE MANUFACTURING THE STATE: specialized knowledge and state action in safeguarding intangible cultural heritage

Institutional ethnography. Intangible Cultural Heritage. Applied Anthropology.
State.

In this thesis, I analyze the relations involving specialized knowledge and
anthropological practices in state actions by examining the work of anthropologists and social
scientists in the Brazilian public administration, in particular, in the implementation of public
policies for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage at the National Institute of Historical and
Artistic Heritage (Iphan, acronym in Portuguese), a federal public agency responsible for
preserving cultural heritage since 1937. Its general objective is to understand the
institutionalization process of the professional practices of anthropologists and social scientists
in relation to the institutionalization process of actions, discourses and practices of a public
policy aimed at valuing Brazilian cultural diversity. In addition, I seek to analyze the context in
which the public administration starts to recruit anthropologists and social scientists, the reason
for investing in these professionals and how they transit in decision-making spheres, linking
specialized knowledge and state action. For this purpose, I carried out an ethnography of
institutions and of power relations and practices. Therefore, I conducted an ethnography of
institutions and power relations and practices. Considering the State not as a monolithic and
reified entity, but a heterogeneous social construction in permanent (trans)formation and carried
out through performative dimensions, symbolic actions and power relations that make up the
State (CASTILHO, SOUZA LIMA, TEIXEIRA, 2014), and permeated by political and
ideological relations (ABRAMS, 1988). Furthermore, I seek to reflect on state strategies for the
legibility of social reality (SCOTT, 1999) and the construction of fluid and porous definitions
of the boundaries between state and society (MITCHELL, 1991; 1999). It was based on
participant observation during public meetings, interviews with civil servants, documents and
legislation analysis, in addition to recovering my own memories and paths as a Technician in
Anthropology at Iphan since 2010, when I was hired after passing a public entrance test.