Research Lines
Research Lines
History, Culture and Power
The concepts of Culture and Power encompass a multiplicity of definitions, uses, and interpretations. They are the main articulators of the studies conducted in the Federal University of Uberlândia’s Graduate History Program. The notion of culture is understood in its polysemic characteristic, which includes: ideas of views and representations of the world; groups of customs, traditions, rules, values, and behavioral standards produced collectively; or yet systems of symbols shared by different subjects and social groups that synthesize codes, modes of living, discourses, and knowledge. This notion articulates with the concept of power inasmuch as identities, institutions, and social relations produce meanings, subordinations, hierarchies, and resistances among the individuals that compose society. Therefore, power constitutes a field of struggle around social meanings as well as an arena of conflictive elements where symbolic formulations act in the structuring of social and political forms. Power, understood beyond traditional institutions such as the State and its apparatus, is approached through a relational and plural perspective as an effect of the dynamics of social relations and cultural practices in constant tension and through which subjects and groups operate and relate to each other legitimizing rules and values, building discourse, producing identities, and generating histories.