Worlds of labor and their memories: the industrial heritage as a possibility of re-elaboration of the social memory about Porto Alegre Metropolitan Region

Abstract

This text aims to question issues related to the spaces of work in the formation and institutionalization of the Metropolitan Region of Porto Alegre/ RMPA regarding the possibilities of reworking the social memory of the so called metropolitan cities from the incorporation of the concept of industrial heritage. In order to do this, we set forth the example of FRIGOSUL, a fridge company located in the city of Canoas/RS, that had been active for more than 50 years, between the 1930s and 1980s. The article is divided in three main parts: the first one deals with territorial formation and population of RMPA from the dynamics of industrialization. It also adds data on the institutionalization of the RMPA and the recognition of industrial districts as early as the 1970s and 1980s. Sequentially, the specific case of FRIGOSUL is emphasized, narrating the history of the fridge company and the memories associated with the worlds of labor from this former production site according to oral testimony of former workers. Last but not least, proposals in the field of industrial heritage are shared as the very factor of (re) signification concerning social memory of the region, notoriously marked by nomenclatures such as the “dormitory-city”, whose ties have been reelaborated through new processes (i)migration in the RMPA at the present time.