Fighting against erasure: a community archive of photos of the São Daniel Profeta Church in Manguinhos

Abstract

This article describes the construction and development of tangible and intangible ties that link the São Daniel Profeta Church to its community in the territory of Manguinhos by tracing the history of the community’s photo archive through a selection of photographs that were digitized as part of the heritage education project carried out by the São Daniel Profeta Church Preservation Committee between 2019 and 2021. These images improved understanding of the affective relationships which were established and the strategy by the Catholic Church and the government to insert themselves into favela communities during the second half of the twentieth century in the city of Rio de Janeiro.