Honor, genealogy and memory as strategies of family distinction in the northeastern hinterland

Abstract

This article argues that genealogical memoirs written by descendants of rural or urban political families, in their apparent intention to record memories and the history of cities, actually hide a strategy of domination and moral legitimization of the name of traditional families. This is a practice that not only guarantees prestige to the family group, but also grants family writers the stamp of approval to construct the official discourse about the place where their practices originated. We start from the reality of the Pereira do Pajeú family, in the interior of Pernambuco, which has a traditional status due to its political history of domination of about 200 years at the forefront of the local political process, corroborated by the constant updating of genealogical and memoir books that produce effects beyond innocuous nostalgia, symbolically reinforcing the honor and distinction of the family within society.