Public policies: guarantee of the right to culture and memory

Abstract

We present a panoramic view of the public policies of museums and memory in Brazil, emphasizing that since the beginning of the 20th century they behaved in a conflictive and paradoxical way. This fact is expressed, among other aspects, by the fragmentation and discontinuity of actions and programs within the scope of state initiatives. Looking from this perspective, the text intends to situate museums, as cultural institutions of memory, to safeguard heritage and education, and the policies that guide them, as axes of the analysis undertaken here. In this scope, it is proposed that public policies be considered as necessary tools to achieve the purpose of guaranteeing the right to culture and memory. From a documentary and bibliographical approach, summary tables were constructed of different moments in the history of cultural policies in the period covered, allowing us to observe some advances, especially in terms of creating a legal scope and working together with national and international bodies for the development of policies for the museum field. The debate points to the need for the strengthening and maturation of civil society in terms of participation in the formulation of cultural policies in general, and particularly in the field of museum institutions. The data presented by the analysis indicated that the more the State organs, responsible for the elaboration and implementation of public policies, involve civil society, the longer the duration of their actions and the more consolidated the public policies become.