Abstracts

ABSTRACTS

p. 7

The core subject of this article is Traditional Oral History expressed through testimonies retrieving the historical past and revealing a people's collective memory. This memory does not become manifest homogenously, but is enunciated by several ways, and this results heterogeneous and even divergent approaches to social and cultural reality. For instance, the presence of amythological conscience and an epic. The latter, structured after the defeated/defeaters binaries is characterized by the creation of social and narrative spaces opposed to each other.

YOLANDA SALAS DE LECUNA. Master in Contemporary Latin American Literature (Simón Bolívar University, Caracas) and post-graduate studies in the Folklore Institute (Bloomington, Indiana). She is author of amonographic essay on Folkloric Story- telling in Venezuela and other articles dealing with Popular Culture. She works in the Rómulo Gallegos Latin American Studies Center Foundation (Caracas) and is guest professor to the Mastery in Contemporary Latin American Literature of the Simón Bolívar University (Caracas). Address: Apartado Postal 80845. Prados del Este. Caracas. Venezuela.

NORMA GONZALEZVILORIA. Graduate from the Caracas Pedagogic Universitary Institute, where she also did post-graduate studies on Language and Literature. She is long experienced in research on Popular Culture. She teaches at Caracas Pedagogical Universitary Institute. Currently, she coordinates a program aimed at linking Public Libraries to local Popular Culture. Address: Apartado Postal 5927. Carmelitas 1010. Caracas.Venezuela.

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This work is part of a Report by The Jamaican Memory Bank, led by Miss Olive Lewin, Head of its Art and Culture section, on request by UNESCO's Regional Culture Office for Latin America and the Caribbean.

That Report includes, furthermore, an inventory of specialized institutions and associations, a list of audio-visual materials compiled by these, and a bibliography ofprintings and manuscripts on the subject of oral traditions in the Caribbean area.

The Jamaican Memory Bank Project began in 1981. It aims at documenting Jamaica’s heritage by tapping the memories of our senior citizens so that their knowledge can be available for posterity. The Memory Bank depends mainly on individuals and Parish Committees who work voluntarily and with great commitment toidentify sources, interview informants, document and organize the information and material gleaned.

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The life story of a son to Caribbean emigrants, born in New York City, who, as a grown-up, decides to live in his father's land of origin, Puerto Rico, is the study subject of this work. This personal case exemplifies the transformations undergone and the attitudes assumed by so many otheremigrants' children who grow up in a milieu alien to their ethnic origin and who, later on, have difficulties in adapting to their parents' former way of life, perceiving the rejection from both societies in which it has been their lot to live and to which, consequently, they cannot become fully integrated.

ANTONIO T. DÍAZ-ROYO. Puerto Rican. Titular professor at the Social Sciences Faculty ofthe University of Puerto Rico in Río Piedras. Master and PhD from New York State University in Albany. He initiated his university studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Postdoctoral studies on Anthropology at John Hopkins University. Outstanding publications: "Dignity and Respect: Two Subjects in Puerto Rican Traditional Culture" in Berry (comp) Applied Cross-cultural Psychology(Holland), 1974: Violence in Two Puerto Rican Urban Communities, volume 8 of the series Etiology of Violence in Puerto Rico (San Juan), 1976: "Psychology in Puerto Rico: Reflexions on a Heritage and a Crisis" in Serra-Deliz and Ramírez (comp), Crisis and Critique in Social Sciences in Puerto Rico (San Juan,) 1979; "Oral History in Puerto Rico: Methodological Reflexions" in Secuencia (Mexico). 1986;...