LOURDINHA LUNA

A WOMAN BETWEEN ROLES

Abstract

This article aims to understand the personal archive of Maria de Lourdes de Lemos Luna (Lourdinha Luna) as a space of memory, analyzing how the documents that make up her collection shed light on her life story and her contributions to the intellectual, cultural, and social spheres of Paraíba. The research addresses the issue of the invisibility of women’s archives in custodial institutions and historical narratives. The theoretical framework is grounded in studies on personal archives, social memory, and gender, understanding archives as social constructs that produce representations, identities, and meanings. From this perspective, women’s archives are understood as important tools for examining historical processesof silenc ing and exclusion. Methodologically, this is a qualitative, exploratory, descriptive, and documentary study, conducted first through a literature review and then through field research. The empirical corpus of the study consists of the personal archive of Lourdinha Luna, held by the Casa de José Américo Foundation. As a supplementary source, we analyzed documents from the personal archive of Socorro Lemos, the niece of Lourdinha Luna. An analysis of these collections reveals that the subject’s career is marked by multiple roles, including those of writer, historian,public servant, memoirist, and cultural organizer. Consequently, Lourdinha Luna’s personal archive serves as a space for the production of knowledge and memory.