Espaço público e subalternidade: considerações em torno da Biblioteca Pública Municipal Ataliba Lago e de suas dimensões representacionais

Abstract

This work highlights the public libraries and seeks to apprehend the different relationships established by a given community with its spaces, services and collections, considering, therefore, the indications of subalternity and representation as formulated by authors and authors linked to the so-called subaltern studies. In view of this, it establishes as a general objective to analyze whether and how the Municipal Public Library Ataliba Lago, based in the city of Divinópolis, a municipality located in the midwest region of the State of Minas Gerais, represents the various population groups of the city through its collections and services. In terms of theoretical foundation, a historical-conceptual review is carried out about the "public library" in order to highlight its characteristics, social functions and the nature of its actions, also presenting a study on the historical and functional context of the Municipal Public Library Ataliba Lago. With regard to its methodological design, the research can be characterized as qualitative, based on a case study. For data collection, semi-structured interviews were conducted with employees of the Municipal Public Library Ataliba Lago, with the Secretary of Culture of the Municipality and with the Coordinator of CRAS Nordeste, a Social Assistance unit that received the library "Cenira Manatta Soares", branch of "Ataliba Lago", in addition to documentary research. Regarding the systematization of the data and analysis of the obtained results, interpretive operators structured in dialogue with the theoretical framework and with the documents collected to perform the work were defined. As a result, it is evident that the Municipal Public Library Ataliba Lago has privileged the maintenance of structural markers of subalternization and the production of a hegemonic discourse around the theme "representation" and the policies of democratization of culture, library and reading, serving differently different population groups of the city, which could be easily perceived from the approach of the concept of sociospatial segregation as a factor of subalternization.