Poor women: social imaginary and the prostitution in Belo Horizonte

The press and memorialist narratives on prostitution and Guaicurus Street in Belo Horizonte (Minas Gerais), among 1920s and 1930s and the 1970 and 1980s, reveals a tension between different manners of existence in urban universe. Such narratives are expressions both of a struggle for the education of sensibilities, and of a social imaginary of the prostitution's locus and its social and cultural practices. This paper outlines an examination of the authority of certain groups to legitimize collective memories, naturalizing and reinforcing the moral and social differences between women that circulate in the city.