Weaving Tradition

Abstract

Nostalgia is what we feel when we perceive ourselves as losing a cherished part of our very being-of spaces we have occupied as our own. Nostalgia can also be a collective feeling, one that can affect an entire community when it loses its spatial or temporal references or an entire social class when it loses its historical position, seeing the symbols of its power that once seemed eternal swept away by the irresistible march of history. The Northeastern region, which arose in the imaginary landscape of Brazil around 1920 to replace the old regional division of the country into North and South, had its roots in nostalgia and tradition. This article discusses how this geographic concept was created-how a that could serve as a topic of academic study, a theme for museum exhibits, and a subject for television programs, novels, paintings, motion pictures, plays, political speeches, and economic policies came into existence, why it was based on nostalgia and tradition, and what this meant politically. The Northeast is not in fact inherent in the natural world. It is not some eternal given. Geographic divisions and regions are human creationspieces of the magma of history solidified by conflicts, attempts to drop