When he left Belgium, his home country, for Brazil, in 1974, Etienne Samain, son of an editor father, had eight suitcases of books in his luggage. After more than 40 years, the library of the retired professor from the Instituto de Ares (IA) at Unicamp was significantly expanded. The current collection, with around 2.400 volumes, has just been donated by him to the “Octávio Ianni” Library of the Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences (IFCH) of the University. The titles deal mainly with themes related to Anthropology, Visual Anthropology, Visual Arts and Anthropology and Biblical Exegesis. “I decided to donate the books because I understood that, now, they want to travel. I say bye. They are big enough for me to trust in their destinies”, explains the intellectual, who has a degree in Anthropology and Theology.
Samain says he decided to donate the collection about two years ago. The books contained therein constitute, to a large extent, an account of the teacher's personal and academic trajectory. “Despite being the son of an editor, I didn’t buy many books in my youth. The acquisitions began when he completed his doctorate in Theological Sciences, in Belgium. The publications on Anthropology and Visual Anthropology came later, when I arrived in Brazil and started my whole life over again”, he reports. Here, Samain graduated in Philosophy from PUC in Rio de Janeiro and completed a master's degree in Social Anthropology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ).
At the National Museum, linked to UFRJ, he associated his studies with the search for his own roots. That's why he chose to research indigenous societies, with the aim of finding substitutes for biblical myths in their myths. “At this stage, the number of books on Anthropology began to increase”. In subsequent years, Samain's library accompanied him in his changes. He left Rio de Janeiro for Natal and left the capital of Rio Grande do Norte to finally land in Campinas, in 1984. “I arrived at Unicamp to, together with other colleagues, implement the postgraduate program in Multimeios”, it says.
At this stage, Samain is placed before a new space of knowledge. This is when he begins working on the photographic visual and, later, on the different dimensions of the visual. “The issue of visuals began to take on an increasingly greater dimension in my work, not only because of my stance here at Unicamp, but due to the reality of the world, which was experiencing a change in communication”, explains the intellectual. From that moment on, Samain began to research how the visual could be incorporated into anthropological discourse, which until then was predominantly written.
The retired IA professor breaks down this approach further: “We can talk about human beings not only through books, but also through visuality. This proposition marked my initial work in Visual Anthropology, a topic that I researched for many years. In the final ten years, what I call a discovery emerges, according to which the arts constitute the central domain of anthropology. In other words, all types of art relate anthropological discourse to the search for human beings”, he points out.
It is throughout this period, obviously, that the library is reinforced by books on Visual Arts and Visual Anthropology. “I never thought about forming a library. It was born from my needs and the needs of my students, as a way of nourishing the themes we work with. I'm not a collector. On the other hand, I would say that this library is a living archive. And it will remain as a living memory of a past, of a trajectory of questions and future desires. Others will use this to also build their trajectories”, predicts Samain.
Organization
Although he worked at IA for 35 years, the professor clarifies the reason that led him to donate the bibliographic collection to the IFCH Library. “Basically because I’m an anthropologist. The books deal with Visual Arts, but mainly Anthropology. This characteristic is what led me to consult the IFCH Library about the possibility of creating a new name, which would be 'Visual Arts and Anthropology'. Furthermore, I think that the initiative is a recognition, within Unicamp, of the trust that the University has always placed in me”.
Before handing over the volumes to the care of the IFCH Library, Samain carried out extensive work. He did a kind of pre-cataloging of the books. The copies were organized by themes and placed in cardboard boxes, which received descriptive labels. In total, 67 boxes were donated. “I tried to follow the main thematic lines that these books followed in the physical geography of my office”, explained the professor in a letter sent to the Library management.
According to the technical director of the IFCH “Octávio Ianni” Library, Valdinéa Sonia Petinari, work on cataloging the collection donated by Samain has already begun. Of the 67 boxes, two were opened and properly sorted. According to her, it is difficult to set a deadline for completing the work. “The books are initially listed and then catalogued. Next, they proceed to the collection. We will evaluate Professor Etienne's suggestion regarding the best location for some themes. The fact is that this collection significantly enriches the Library’s collection”, considers Valdinéa.