Cassino Aimores: a space of sociability and disputes over memory

Abstract

This work discusses a space of sociability, which was in a former leprosarium in the interior of the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and was part of a network of five public colony asylums, designed to isolate leprosy patients from society when there was no treatment for the disease. The institution offered an infrastructure that enabled internees to form new bonds, social relations and practices. The Cassino Aimores, which operated between 1938 and 1974, was an important space of sociability in this context. Transformed into Silas Braga Reis Museum, the place houses a collection that helps to emphasize an institutional discourse, to the detriment of the memories of its patients. This article aims to criticize the symbolic disputes that ended up silencing the presence of the regular patients of that place.