Itajai Ethno-Archaeological Museum: Community space for collective memories

The article proposes some reflections on the space of the Ethno-Archaeological Museum of Itajai, which occupied the building of the old railway station, and today presents itself as a community space, redefining the collective memories of the time, thus preserving the history of the Railway Santa Catarina, considered its importance in the Itajai Valley. The museum provides an opportunity to share the rural and local ethnography of the Itaipava neighborhood and, through the shell mounds, its archeology. By extolling its history, it describing a not-so-distant past and presents collective memories of that space-time. The objective of this research is to reflect on the ethics of the creation of the museum, the history of the built heritage and the memories internalized in that community space that was the Engenheiro Vereza Railway Station and currently the Ethno-Archaeological Museum. The conceptual foundation deepens the assessments of Le Goff (2013) and Pierre Nora (1993) to address history and memory, as well as the concept of Halbwachs (2006) about collective memory. The considerations of Vazquez (2014) on ethics and Besterman (2006) in the relationship of ethics with the museum and its history with the community, are also used, focusing on the qualitative approach and the precepts of the phenomenological method by Moreira (2002), for analyze the experiences of individuals who have lived and live around that community space.