The purpose of this paper is to discuss the process of designing and implementing intangible cultural heritage policies in Brazil from the perspective of anthropologists. From the 1940s to the present, oral history archives have been developed and expanded throughout the world. In Brazil, in particular, we can observe a consolidation of this field, which can be seen in the proliferation of programs, centers, associations and research projects in which oral history plays a specific role. In this sense, the archives of the FGV CPDOC Oral History Program are particularly relevant. Created in 1975, the program now has about 2,500 interviews and 7,777 hours of recordings, most of which are freely available to the public. Among the more than 150 projects, I would like to highlight "The Memory of Social Sciences in Brazil", a project dedicated to building a large collection of filmed life history interviews with social scientists. For the purposes of this paper, I will focus on anthropologists directly involved in the design and implementation of the recent Intangible Heritage field, focusing on showing, in their interviews, how they report how popular culture and folklore were gradually incorporated into the cultural heritage agenda. The protection of intangible heritage in Brazil began in 2000, when a decree was published that allowed its preservation, although we can see this agenda in the Federal Constitution of 1988. Regarding the interviewees, it's important to mention that they are leading figures in Brazilian anthropology and have often played the role of not only academic professors and researchers, but also managers throughout their careers. Through the Intangible Heritage Agenda, we can see, through these autobiographical archival documents, a discussion of some of the paths taken by Brazilian anthropology from the second half of the 20th century, especially from the 1970s to the present.