Brazilian Geography: In Theory and in the Streets PDF
Preview Brazilian Geography: In Theory and in the Streets
Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences Rubén C. Lois González Marco Antonio Mitidiero Junior Editors Brazilian Geography In Theory and in the Streets Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences Series Editor R. B. Singh, University of Delhi, Delhi, India Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences synthesizes series diag- nostigation and prognostication of earth environment, incorporating challenging interactive areas within ecological envelope of geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere and cryosphere. It deals with land use land cover change (LUCC), urbanization, energy flux, land-ocean fluxes, climate, food security, ecohydrology, biodiversity, natural hazards and disasters, human health and their mutual interac- tion and feedback mechanism in order to contribute towards sustainable future. The geosciences methods range from traditional field techniques and conventional data collection, use of remote sensing and geographical information system, computer aided technique to advance geostatistical and dynamic modeling. The series integrate past, present and future of geospheric attributes incorporating biophysical and human dimensions in spatio-temporal perspectives. The geosciences, encompassing land-ocean-atmosphere interaction is considered as a vital component in the context of environmental issues, especially in observation and prediction of air and water pollution, global warming and urban heat islands. It is important to commu- nicate the advances in geosciences to increase resilience of society through capacity building for mitigating the impact of natural hazards and disasters. Sustainability of human society depends strongly on the earth environment, and thus the development of geosciences is critical for a better understanding of our living environment, and its sustainable development. Geoscience also has the responsibility to not confine itself to addressing current problems but it is also developing a framework to address future issues. In order to build a ’Future Earth Model’ for understanding and predicting the functioning of the whole climatic system, collaboration of experts in the traditional earth disciplines as well as in ecology, information technology, instrumentation and complex system is essential, through initiatives from human geoscientists. Thus human geosceince is emerging as key policy science for contributing towards sustainability/survivality science together with future earth initiative. Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences series publishes books that contain novel approaches in tackling issues of human geoscience in its broadest sense—books in the series should focus on true progress in a particular area or region. The series includes monographs and edited volumes without any limitations in the page numbers. · Rubén C. Lois González Marco Antonio Mitidiero Junior Editors Brazilian Geography In Theory and in the Streets Editors Rubén C. Lois González Marco Antonio Mitidiero Junior Department of Geography Federal University of Paraíba University of Santiago de Compostela João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil Santiago de Compostela, La Coruña, Spain ISSN 2198-3542 ISSN 2198-3550 (electronic) Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences ISBN 978-981-19-3703-3 ISBN 978-981-19-3704-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3704-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore Contents 1 Introduction .................................................. 1 Rubén C. Lois-González and Marco Antonio Mitidiero Junior Part I Theoretical Contributions and Challenges for Brazilian Geography 2 Critical Geography: From the Office to the Streets ............... 17 Alexandrina Luz Conceição and Sócrates Menezes 3 Far Beyond the ‘Natural Environment’: Geography at the Crossroads of the Capitalocene ........................... 35 Marcelo Lopes de Souza 4 Brazilian Geography and the Study of Territorial Formation ...... 55 Manoel Fernandes de Sousa Neto 5 Man is His Being in the World. Geography and Geographicity ..... 65 Ruy Moreira 6 Physical Geography and the Study of Environmental Problems: The Brazilian Contribution .......................... 81 Dirce Maria Antunes Suertegaray 7 The Study of Cities in Brazilian Geography ...................... 97 Pedro de Almeida Vasconcelos 8 The Production of Urban Space and “Critical Geography” ........ 115 Ana Fani Alessandri Carlos 9 Dialogues on Brazilian Political Geography and Its Perspectives in the Twenty-First Century ........................ 131 Adriana Dorfman and Lício Caetano do Rego Monteiro v vi Contents 10 The Consensual Divorce of Geography. Adherence to Neoliberalism, the Cult of Freedom and the Overthrow of Democracy ................................................. 145 Tadeu Alencar Arrais 11 Scientific Research and the Construction of the Field of Teaching of Geography in Schools: Trends and Challenges ...... 161 Ângela Massumi Katuta and Maria Adailza Martins de Albuquerque 12 The Contribution of Milton Santos to the Theoretical Formation of Brazilian Geography .............................. 183 Mónica Arroyo and Fabio Betioli Contel 13 Carlos Augusto de Figueiredo Monteiro and the Construction of Brazilian Geographical Climatology .......................... 199 Francisco Mendonça 14 Aziz Nacib Ab’Saber and the Professionalisation of Research in Geomorphology in Brazilian Geography Courses .............. 215 Antonio Carlos Vitte and Rafaela Soares Part II Brazilian Geography, a Geography of the Street 15 The Right to the City and the Housing in Brazilian Cities ......... 233 Arlete Moysés Rodrigues 16 The Long March of the Brazilian Peasantry: Socioterritorial Movements, Conflicts and Agrarian Reform ..................... 255 Ariovaldo Umbelino de Oliveira 17 Land and Food: The New Struggles of the Landless Workers Movement (MST) ............................................. 279 Bernardo Mançano Fernandes 18 Geography and Indigenous Peoples: Struggles of Resistance ....... 297 Márcia Yukari Mizusaki and José Gilberto de Souza 19 The Geography of Labour Under Construction: Theoretical Challenges and Research Praxis ................................ 319 Antonio Thomaz Junior 20 A Popular Environmentalism in Defence of Life, Dignity and Territory (An Autobiographical Contribution from an Activist Geographer) .................................. 347 Carlos Walter Porto-Gonçalves 21 Decolonisation Challenges of the Brazilian/Latin American Geography/ies ................................................ 363 Rogério Haesbaert Contents vii 22 Brazilian Feminist Geographies: Occupying Space, Resisting Negation and Producing Challenges to Geography ............... 381 Joseli Maria Silva and Marcio Jose Ornat 23 Association of Brazilian Geographers (AGB): The Construction of a Geography of Struggle ........................ 399 Charlles da França Antunes and Paulo Alentejano Epilogue .......................................................... 423 Chapter 1 Introduction Rubén C. Lois-González and Marco Antonio Mitidiero Junior Editors Geography as a social science focused on spatial and territorial analysis has often achieved greater academic relevance in the so-called new countries. With this expres- sion, we refer to nation-states located outside Europe, arising from decolonization processes as opposed to old metropolises, and with a vast territory to map, describe, occupy as well as rich natural resources to exploit. Indeed, the discipline of geography has proven highly useful in creating a national feeling thanks to maps, facilitating the colonization of new lands, getting closer to the indigenous peoples and maximizing the capitalist profitability of peripheral regions (Capel 1981; Santos 2002). Undoubt- edly, in countries such as the USA, Canada, Australia, the Republic of South Africa or Brazil, among others, Geography is presented as an essential science that has been institutionalized in various fields. This opening paragraph helps to understand that geographical knowledge in Brazil has historically been valued. A knowledge that has helped systematize the various information arriving from the vast inland and Amazon region, which has been consid- ered fundamental in the process of the political-administrative delimitation of the country, in the setting up of a Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) and in the academic institutionalization of the discipline. It could be affirmed that Geography has facilitated the configuration of the modern country, once the control of the Empire was over. A polysemic science valued by the military and explorers, applied to carry out broad demographic and social sampling (very necessary in such an unequal nation) and claimed as superior knowledge in universities and geograph- ical societies. In this way, spatial and territorial analysis has been present in very B R. C. Lois-González · M. A. Mitidiero Junior ( ) Universities of Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain e-mail: [email protected] Federal of Paraiba, Paraiba, Brazil © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 1 R. C. Lois González and M. A. Mitidiero Junior (eds.), Brazilian Geography, Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3704-0_1 2 R.C.Lois-GonzálezandM.A.MitidieroJunior diverse areas of Brazilian life and, imitating the French example of European culture and civilization in the construction of Brazilian Geography, has always been marked by the French disciplinary tradition (Borzacchielo 2016). Professionals such as J. Tricart, P. Deffontaines or P. Monbeig, among other names, had visited and condi- tioned the rules of Brazilian Geography since the mid-twentieth century (Monbeig 1975; Boletim Paulista de Geografia 2004). At the same time, the work of prominent authors such as J. de Castro or M. Santos could not be understood without their years of training and professional experience in France (Borzacchielo 2016). Starting from the aforementioned important historical tradition, since the 1970s the institutionalization of Geography spread throughout Brazil and largely facilitated the construction of a democratic society, yet one which was always fragile and marked by inequality. This is the period covered in this book. If in the 1960s the academic presence of the discipline was evident in Rio de Janeiro, Sâo Paulo, Salvador de Bahía and some cities in the South of the country, the following decades supposed the creation of Geography undergraduate and postgraduate degrees inland, in the Northeast, the North and in the confines of the Amazon (Da Silva 2011; Spósito, 2016a, b). This explains why Geography is currently a university degree in more than 250 towns, is offered as a postgraduate degree in 77 universities and is part of other academic studies such as territorial planning, tourism or cartography (ANPEGE 2010–16; Sposito 2016). Along with this undoubted expansion of the discipline in Brazil, becoming one of the nations in the world where geographic analyses are more explanatory and widespread, the very character of the science has been changing. A milestone in this transformation has been the groundbreaking stage initiated by the Asociaçâo de GeografosBrasileiros (AGB) in the early 1980s, which is discussed in one of the chapters of this book. The AGB stopped being just another traditional and academic society to become the voice of a critical Geography, which claimed direct contact amongst Geography lectures at different educational levels, and understood spatial and territorial analysis as a tool for deep political and social change (AGB 1980–82; Rodrigues 2004). The trajectory of the AGB added to the role played by the Associaçâo Nacional de Pós-Graduaçâo e PesquisaemGeografía (ANPEGE) has conditioned the research developed in recent decades, always imbued with a critical zeal against the existing reality and promoting a new type of socio-spatial relationships. As already mentioned, since the 1980s, Geography has largely become an expres- sion of the demands for profound changes in the main nation of South America and, by extension, of Latin America. This role of Geography justifies the direct link with the widespread social movements at the end of the twentieth century (Geography on the street) and with the rise to power of progressive or leftist governments since the early 2000s. This role adopted by the majority of the geographical community, far from reducing the discipline to academic knowledge, contributed to its populariza- tion, to the increase of its theoretical prestige, along with other disciplines such as Anthropology, Sociology, Critical Economics and Environmental Sciences. In addi- tion, its popularity spread throughout Latin America, since the feeling of unity of the continent against the interference of the North has always been a vindication of the left in contrast to an apparently more nationalist right, defender of bilateral relations
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