Maria Luiza Cestari, Eva Maagerø, Elise Seip Tønnessen (orgs)

Aproximações

Duas gaúchas, uma morando em São Paulo e outra  na Noruega,  se  reencontram em Porto Alegre, depois de muitos anos. Conversa vai-conversa vem, entre tantas coisas em comum, apesar da distância e do tempo que as separam, descobrem uma afinidade na postura especulativa e no gosto pelo exercício empírico centrados na pesquisa. A gaúcha vivendo na Noruega reflete sobre a experiência longe dos pagos:“o encontro com ' o outro' também nos faz profundamente conscientes de nossa própria identidade e de nosso modo de pensar 'naturalizado' ". Assim se iniciou intensa troca de idéias, de relatos de vivências e contatos com diferentes realidades culturais, de leituras sobre o assunto.

De fato , o encontro das gaúchas assinala apenas um trecho da trajetória que  Networking Cultures - Brazilian-Norwegian dialogues apresenta. Os vários autores do livro tratam de  revelar o que culturas da Noruega, país com o mais alto Índice de  Desenvolvimento Humano (IDH) entre os países da ONU , e do Brasil, num modesto 63o. lugar,  têm de oposições, contrastes, eventuais semelhanças e, especialmente, peculiaridades. Sem dúvida, pesquisadores de ambos os lados do Equador terão muito  a descobrir lendo esses textos. Sobretudo pela importância crescente dos intercâmbios culturais para quem queira contribuir na melhoria do mundo em que vivemos. O livro será lançado em agosto, na Noruega, e espera-se que logo seja traduzido e publicado no Brasil.

Maria Helena Martins

PREFACE

This book is the result of encounters between Brazilian and Norwegian scholars in the fall of 2002. Two Norwegians and one Brazilian living in Norway made the trip over the ocean and from north to south in search for the experience of cultural networks. From the outset we had the idea that meeting a different culture we would learn a lot about the ways of life and thinking in a different culture. On the other hand, the encounter with `the other' also made us acutely aware of our own identity and naturalized way of thinking. In Rio, Salvador, Porto Allegre and Sao Paolo we met colleagues at different universities, friends in their homes and just people in cafes and bars, on the beaches and in the streets and the shops, in museums and churches. Every meeting between people is also a meeting between cultures. We met open and engaged people who wanted to share their culture and their time with us. They took us to lectures, libraries and book stores at universities and let us give lectures, to lessons and teacher rooms in schools, to samba in Rio and gaucho dance in the south, to concerts, book fairs, candomblé, markets, and parties. The impressions of all these colourful and exciting meetings, but also of the favellas, the paper boxes serving as homes for poor families under the bridges, and the begging children when the cars stopped at the red light, were b and deep. Every evening we had to sum up on our silent walks on the beaches in order to both reflect upon the new and relate it to our own ways of thinking and acting. One of us, Maria Luisa, who lives with one foot in Brazil and the other one in Norway, served as a bridge in this process, and deepened and broadened our reflections.

Our travel turned out to be an encounter between north and south, between a small egalitarian society and a huge country where ethnic variety and social differences is the normal state of affairs. In spite of the contrasts, there were also moments of recognition, especially in the meetings with scholars occupied with the same topics, evolving around education, language, literature and culture.

In this book we have aimed at nurturing the dialogues started during the trip. Basically the topics are covered from both Brazilian and Norwegian side. The introductory article reflects on the concepts of culture and identity in a rapidly changing world characterized by increased mobility and instant communication. From this common ground, we move on to topics of reading, from a historical as well as cultural perspective. Regina Zilberman draws the main lines back to the origins of book culture, highlighting our common roots through the European heritage from Greek and Christian culture. Maria Tereza Amodeo reflects on the basic human urge for stories, and how the traditions of oral storytelling can enrich lives for young and old, in sickness and in health. Moving to the modern extreme, Vera Pereira and Elise Seip Tønnessen reflect on the potentials of computers in the teaching of reading, and the concequences for young people's reading strategies. Sissa Jacobi and Signe Mari Wiland both approach the question of how to reveal the pleasures of poetry to young students. In the latter case, the additional challenge of doing this in the teaching of English as a foreign language is considered. This is also the topic of Jussara M. Zilles' article, discussing the need for including the knowledge of culture in the foreign language classroom. The cultural context of translation and reading is highlighted in the two following articles. Eva Maagerø explores the cultural conditions for translation in the perspective of systemic functional linguistics. And Elise Seip Tønnessen presents an empirical case study of the reception of a Brazilian novel translated into Norwegian. The two final articles present a special case of life at the cultural borders, in this case the region where Uruguay and Argentine meets the South of Brazil. Maria Helena Martins reports from the project Fronteiras Culturais: Brasil - Uruguay - Argentina, which has engaged the population of this region since 2000 in reading, writing, performing and discussing their culture. Finally the pianist Olinda Alessandrini in dialogue with Maria Luiza Cestari reflects on how music can express and communicate culture across borders.

Maria Luiza Cestari, Eva Maagerø, Elise Seip Tønnessen (orgs)
Brazil and Norway, February 2006

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