No chão da praça: crônicas do cotidiano

Abstract

This reportage book focuses on Praça Padre Cícero, an urban public space located in downtown Juazeiro do Norte, understood as a territory of circulation, memory, labor, religiosity, and sociability. The work seeks to document and interpret the square’s everyday dynamics through the experiences of people who maintain emotional, economic, and cultural ties to the place, including merchants, workers, regular visitors, and popular artists. The reporting process was developed through literary journalism and field-reporting techniques, prioritizing participant observation, in-person interviews, and the construction of narratives grounded in attentive listening and direct coexistence with the portrayed subjects. The investigative process privileged direct contact with the urban space, making it possible to grasp subjective and symbolic dimensions that would hardly be captured through documentary sources alone or interviews mediated by digital technologies. Structurally, the book organizes different stories and narrative fragments in the form of reportage chronicles, composing a mosaic of perspectives on the square and its significance to the city. By addressing themes such as collective memory, cultural identity, informal labor, popular religiosity, and urban transformations, the work proposes a reflection on the relationship between public space and human experience within the context of the Cariri region of Ceará.