Abstract
Studying the process of transmission of “practical knowledge” among urban workers, it is discussed the place and meaning of narrated “cases” that are regarded as exemplar. Such “cases”, are taken as representative of events and as memory of life experiences. The record of these cases, their circulation and transmission builds up a pedagogy that works as a way of constructing identities. In this paper, are analyzed cases of “miraculous healing”, classified in two main categories: as cases of “desengano” [hopeless cases] and cases of spiritual healing. Through this empirical material, I discuss the interrelation and the confrontation between different knowledge regarding the body and the disease, within its “native” connotation of “practical and theoretical knowledge”. The analysis of these cases also allows us to think about the place of orality in societies where the literacy is a dominant mode of knowledge, at the same time that contributes to a discussion about the construction of the familiar and local memory.