Founders, ancestors, and enemies: memory, family, time, and space in the P ernambuco sertão

This article concerns the use of narrative and genealogical frameworks among sertanejos , the inhabitants of the hinterlands ( sertão ) of P ernambuco in the N ortheast of B razil, in the process of grouping and differentiating families. It explores how accounts produced by different people are linked by shared memories of past conflicts – such as cangaço and questões de família (lit. ‘family issues’). Through conceived and lived relationships among relatives and the correlated concepts of ‘blood’ and ‘race’ current in this social formation, I look to identify the different meanings attributed to time and space, inscribed in the collective memory, and implicated in the moving configurations of ‘family’ in a cognatic universe.