Search

This paper discusses the 1920’s census and its historical counterpart, the celebration of Brazil’s independence centenary, by considering the participation of Mário Augusto Teixeira de Freitas in it. Freitas was a protagonist in conceiving and implementing statistical policies in Brazil and had a decisive role in the creation of the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE). His trajectory was much influenced by his own experience in Minas Gerais, where he coordinated the census and participated actively in official initiatives for the celebration. The paper aims to unfold this specific experience in its technical, political, and symbolical aspects.

Urban agriculture (UA) is characterized by agricultural production within urban and peri-urban areas to produce food or generate income. Depending on the context of the place where it is implemented, this practice can improve the landscape, the quality of life and food of producers, as well as their social relations. This paper aims to present visible transformations, not only of the environment, but also the improvement of the quality of life of urban farmers in Tatuquara, at Curitiba-PR, during the years 2017 and 2018. It was observed that UA was responsible for increasing the improvement of life, landscape and security in the local community, as well as the sense of topophilia, the emotional bond between people and place, according to Yi-Fu Tuan. Despite its use in urban marketing, the continuity of the practice is threatened by the possible end of the partnership with the power utility and by pressure from the real estate market. For this paper, a literature review on the concept of UA was conducted, as well as a historical-geographical study of the neighborhood in question. Interviews with urban farmers at Tatuquara were conducted to assess their feelings about UA and how this practice has affected their lives.

The publication of the first results of the China's population census revealed a growing concentration in the two most populous urban agglomerations on the world : Shanghai has 95 million inhabitants and Guangzhou 70 million. The paper focuses on the second one, whose polycentric urban pattern of “conurbation” evokes the model of the North-Eastern American Megalopolis identified by Jean Gottmann in 1963. According to him, this model prefigured the urban future of humanity, but the demographic density is far much lower than in Canton. Re-examining the great classical models of urban development, the paper raises the question of the exportability of the Chinese way of development to the rest of the world.

The proposal in this paper is to recover the discussions on regionalism taking as a starting point that every idea of regionalism is based on a regional delimitation, which in the case of the old regionalism is grounded in the well elaborated idea of a regional issue and that there is no consensus about the meaning and functionality of the concept. Briefly, two axes are taken around which the discussions and controversies about regionalism as a problem are based today: the “old” and the “new” regionalism. In these axes will be retaken: the discussion of the conditions necessary for regionalism as a concept and as action strategy, and the investigation of its current characteristics in view of the possibilities of new social, political and economic issues that are imposed on subnational and supranational scales. While the idea of the old regionalism is nourished from the perspective of the region as an issue, that is, as a spatial continent of a problem or even conflicts of a cultural, political or economic order at the subnational scale; instead the new regionalism presents for the region's debate as a spatial extension of innovations and economic potential, also on a supranational scale. The aim of this paper is to discuss regionalism as a problem at different scales and situations. The text is divided into two parts: in the first, I return to the debate on what today can be called old regionalism and some points around the discussion about its foundations and justifications. The second part presents the characteristics and the debate on the so-called new regionalism.

After presenting the historical and tourism context of Sabah in Malaysia, this paper analyses the staging of ethnicity for tourists within Sabah Village. Depending on the socio-cultural profile of the tourists, the visit can be perceived as: a reinforcement of nationalist sentiment, a reinforcement of a sense of superiority and difference between 'us' and 'them', or as a visit that fosters a quest for exoticism and primitivism. These different types of visits are linked by the playfulness of the activities offered.

The paper addresses two fieldwork carried out in Terra do Meio, a mosaic of protected areas located in the watershed of the Xingu River, in the state of Pará. This work is part of a doctoral process that aimed to analyze, in particular, the impacts of the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant, from the riverside perspective of the extractive reserves of Iriri, Xingu and Riozinho do Anfrísio. The main goal of this paper is to discuss challenges for scientific research in the Amazon region based on the experience of two field works carried out in conservation units in a region marked by contradictions, disputes, conflicts and a complex territorial experience. This is a qualitative and interdisciplinary research that involves both ethnographic methods, as well as participant observation, semi-structured interviews and different techniques of mapping and field research. Finally, this paper analyzes the challenges for research in an area marked by contradictions, disputes and conflicts with remarkable territorial complexity.

This paper aims to discuss how international climate agreements were translated by the Brazilian agribusiness actors in the construction of the Sectorial Plan for Mitigation and Adaptation to Climate Change for the Consolidation of a Low Carbon Economy in Agriculture (ABC Plan), and how it was implemented in the states of Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul, through the ABC Program. For that, 70 actors linked to the construction and implementation of these actions were interviewed, and was utilized the policy translation and implementation approaches. The paper demonstrates that the ABC Plan construction involved a certain advance translation of the ideas from the international to the national context. Interpreted as an opportunity to re-signify the Brazilian agriculture, agribusiness actors defined a strategy in advance and attended in the COP15 with a structured policy proposal for low-carbon agriculture. Diverging of the unidirectional policy transfer, the Plan and the ABC Program resulted of a process of two-way translation from the international to the national level, strategically guided by Brazil. After being “translated” into the national context, the ABC Plan and Program were (re)translated during its implementation, when reaching local spaces. If the ideas of reducing greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions were present during the ABC Plan and Program formulation, they do not find any correspondence in the interpretations and actions of street-level bureaucrats. They interpret the Program as another credit line, pointing out formal and administrative issues that discourage the policy access. It is observed, therefore, an interpretive distance between the ideas on the global scale and their translations into national and local scales.

This paper approaches three different theses. First, food agroindustry is of central importance for understanding agribusiness diffusion in Ceará (Brazil). Second, general conditions for capital reproduction of that agribusiness also take place in the Metropolitan Area of Fortaleza, especially in the core municipality. Third, large food agribusiness companies do a corporate use of land in Ceará and thus they figure prominently responsible for important economic and spatial processes. In this way, we basically intend to present an argumentative essay for verification of the three mentioned theses, along three different main sections of this paper. The first section introduces Ceará’s agribusiness profile by size, relating farming settlements and their formal jobs. The second, their spatial distribution over Ceará. And the third section relates food agribusiness and economic activity groups, highlighting large companies as well as economic and spatial processes ignited by them.

In translating for the first time in Portuguese two papers written by the geographer H.C. Darby — On the relations of geography and history (1953) e The problem of geographical description (1962) —, our aim is to underline their methodological contribution to the historical geography such as the description and temporality of the landscapes and the relations between text and image. However, in order to denaturalise the arriving of a new foreign paper, we also pointed out the role of translations on the teaching of the history of geography in a peripheral nation such as Brazil. In methodological terms, the field of translation studies allows us to interrogate the current circulation of science and its geopolitical content.

This paper proposes a study on the ecclesiastical structure of the Captaincy of Goyaz until the year of 1783. The study, using data extracted from the "Notícia Geral da Capitania de Goiás", proposes an approach methodologically inserted in Historical Geography with an employment of information techniques and quantitative analysis. On this procedural apparatus, the elaboration of a digital cartography allows the comprehension of elements that are pertinent to the "freguesias goianas" (or parishes), to their chapels and the dioceses that contained this broad territory of Portuguese America. Location factors were discussed, along with other space-associated parameters, such as the jurisdiction of these "freguesias", the demographic composition of the region and the frontiers that were made visible with these graphical elaborations. Lastly, quantitative analytics were extracted aiming to apprehend established trends over the gathered data, in reference to demography and also to the distance between each chapel and its "freguesia". Certain understandings were proposed on the research of the eighteenth century Goyaz, all provided by the technical and methodological elaboration indicated in this paper.

The purpose of this article is to deal with the questions on the role of oil territories in the energy transition and in sustainability transition vis-à-vis vulnerable spaces. We focus on the land-sea interactions to highlight the peculiarities of the coastal zone and the articulations between economic and institutional structures that characterize these territories. The article examines the exploration of oil in the equatorial margin, considered a new energy frontier in South America. Located along the coast of Venezuela to the north coast of Rio Grande do Norte, the geographical approach adopted in this paper considers exclusively the portion located in the Brazilian coastal zone. The conclusion illustrates that the different transitions do not depend exclusively on the evolution of the technological apparatus, but also on political agreements that interpellate both South American and global governance of these transitions.

Brazil is one of the major centers for the expansion of food retail in the world, due to the size of its territory and a broad base of consumers in urban spaces. Over the last decade of the 20th century, there was a high increase in the capital participation of multinational retail chains in the domestic market, with mergers and acquisitions of companies with national and regional operations. The French group Carrefour stands out as the current leader in the sector and pioneer in the national territory since 1975. This paper aims to analyze the supermarket concentration ratio in Brazil based on the strengthening of the Carrefour group. We intend to highlight the implications for the geography of the commercial capital in food retail by highlighting the strategies to acquire new companies, the territorial topology, investments in banking capital, and summarizing the main socioeconomic impacts for the agri-food network.

In the early 1990s, arrastões became known in Rio de Janeiro as events in which robberies were committed by youth gangs, particularly on the beaches.They shaped strongly the experience in these spaces and changing the imaginary about seaside practices in the city of Rio de Janeiro. This paper proposes to understand, from the analysis of newspaper news, the public debate that preceded the stabilization of the contents related to the arrastão and its location on the seashore beaches of the Southern Zone of Rio. This article proposes to understand, from the analysis of newspaper news, the public debate that preceded the stabilization of the content related to the trawler and its location on the seashore beaches of the Southern Zone of Rio. Back in the early 1980s, when arrastões took place in other areas of the city, the study continued until the "summer of the arrastão" (1991-1992), when the practice was definitively associated with the carioca seafront and was highly requalified. In addition to the definitions of the practice and the actors involved, the paper also seeks to highlight the elements that constituted the spatiality of such phenomenon, with emphasis on the centrality and visibility of public spaces, and the relationships and connections between different spaces in the city.

The paper discusses the role that digital commerce can play in the construction of more sustainable food commercialization circuits that promote, among other aspects, (re)connections, both between spaces and between agents involved in the food system. Faced with the strong commercial concentration exercised by supermarkets and the difficulties for products and agents that promote alternative food systems to access the market, we seek to understand how digital commerce can be mobilized to build more sustainable supply networks and to what extent these networks are able to implement more environmentally and socially responsible principles. We sought to produce a census of digital marketing circuits independent of the large distribution networks in Rio de Janeiro in 2021 and 2022, focusing on those that mobilize principles of sustainability in their communication. After characterizing their organization and the aspects of sustainability they invoke, we conducted semi-structured interviews on initiatives whose main role is to act as a commercial intermediary. The data obtained contributed to the distinction of different profiles of circuits in the city and discuss the potential and limits of digital tools to foster sustainable food systems.

This paper analyzes the historical transformations and recent dynamics of food supply in Belo Horizonte and associates these dynamics with different configurations of food systems (modern, mixed and traditional). The study mobilizes different research techniques and data sources, prevailing documentary research, literature review, and secondary data survey. The results show major transformations in the dynamics of food supply in the municipality throughout the 20th century, with food and elements associated with modern food systems gaining relevance. In fact, nowadays the presence of retail trade stands out, followed by specialized food companies and wholesale trade, which are fundamentally linked to mixed and modern food systems. These dynamics are permeated, to a lesser extent, by public policies for commercialization and access to food, which are fundamentally linked to mixed and traditional food systems. The analysis shows the existence of a variety of food systems and environments in Belo Horizonte, which pose different challenges for building healthier, more inclusive and sustainable food dynamics.

This paper aims to describe and consider the recent agreements signed between Amazonian peoples and transnational and Brazilian corporations. Therefore, the text draws on two distinct sources: a) the ethnographic descriptions, documents and articles published by Brazilian researchers; and b) fieldwork in the community of São Francisco do Iratapuru, located in the state of Amapá, in Brazilian Amazonia, with the local inhabitants (castanheiros) which have for more than 10 years commercial agreements with the largest cosmetics company in Brazil, Natura S/A. The paper argues that such a relationship can not be understood only through the criticism of the advancement of the capitalist model of exchange and exploitation, but must take into account other aspects as important as this: the incorporation of Amazonian alterity and the imaginary of sustainability become fundamental elements in the production of value for the so-called green capitalism.

The Mouth of the Amazon River, considered to be the largest river on Earth, is a geomorphological macro-frontier between two coastal blocks : the Guiana Shield coastal plain (from Amapa to Venezuela) and the North Brazil block (Pará/Maranhão). It also constitutes a vast geological domain that links the Amapa Platform, the Marajo Basin and the Pará/Maranhão Platform. This Paper brings a synthetic view on this coastal compartment. It refers to a large number of multidisciplinary scientific results, and to remote sensing breakthroughs in environmental monitoring. The main purpose of the Paper is to enlight the role of the Mouth as a threshold in regional and local dinamics and processes. The geomorphological analysis relies on a taxonomy of facts and on dialectics between types and individuals. Final considerations are focused on environmental indicators and on current trends in coastal evolution in the Amazon.

The Mouth of the Amazon River, considered to be the largest river on Earth, is a geomorphological macro-frontier between two coastal blocks : the Guiana Shield coastal fringe (from Amapa to Venezuela) and the Para/Maranhao block (North Brazil). It also constitutes a vast geological domain that links the Amapa Platform, the Marajo Basin and the Para/Maranhao Platform. This Paper brings a synthetic view on this coastal compartment. It refers to a large number of multidisciplinary scientific results, and to remote sensing breakthroughs in environmental monitoring. The main purpose of the Paper is to enlight the role of the Mouth as a threshold in regional and local dinamics and processes. The geomorphological analysis relies on a taxonomy of facts and on dialectics between types and individuals. Final considerations are focused on environmental indicators and on current trends in coastal evolution in the Amazon. Warning : this text constitutes the first Part of the Paper. The second Part of the Paper will be published in the next volume of CONFINS.

The site and situation of New Orleans, entrepôt city on the Mississippi River, North America’s major fluvial system, presents an ideal case for applying what I have termed the “Braudelian time-geographic” perspective. Since its founding in the early 1700s, New Orleans and the Mississippi River have been integrally connected. But the relationship has been variable. Much of this variation stems from New Orleans’ larger connections with its hinterlands – one upriver a half a continent in extent, and the other down river and into the Gulf/Caribbean Basin and rimlands. This paper charts key shifts in city/river relations using a Braudel’s fifty-year, or conjunctural interval of historical change. The paper also applies Torsten Hägerstrand’s concept of time-geography to New Orleans as an urban organism, with a life of its own, but always mediated by the Mississippi.

A atualização das populações das cidades do banco de dados Geopolis mostra que as duas cidades mais populosas do planeta agora estão localizadas na China. Em 2010, com 79,7 milhões de habitantes numa aglomeração urbana contínua, Shanghai pulveriza o recorde anteriormente detido por Tokyo. A segunda maior cidade do mundo é a aglomeração de Cantão-Shenzhen, que atinge 47,5 milhões de pessoas. Este artigo explica primeiro por que estes números não são - e não podem - ser oficiais, dadas a função de confirmação da definição das cidades na China, que se opõem a dimensão exploratória de estatísticas nas ciências sociais ocidentais. O artigo, em seguida, recorda brevemente a definição morfológica e metodologia utilizada, em conexão com as fontes que temos hoje na China. Os resultados apresentados fogem da armadilha de superlativos triviais, que invade muito facilmente a literatura sobre as maiores cidades do mundo, em detrimento da compreensão mais geral deste fenómeno. Para fazer isso, o tamanho das cidades chinesas é primeiro posto em perspectiva como o país, as escolhas de desenvolvimento recentes feitas pelo governo e, em seguida, com o lugar desta civilização nos milhares de anos da história urbana da humanidade. A abordagem morfológica também destaca a nova forma, resolutamente policêntrica e mais extensa, que tomam faz alguns anos todas as grandes cidades do planeta. Por suas dimensões excepcionais, os centros de Shanghai e Guangzhou, finalmente, nos dão a refletir sobre definições, conceitos e desafios que vão muito além do "Império do Meio". The population update of the Geopolis database shows that the two most populated urban agglomerations of the world are now located in China. With 79.7 million of inhabitants in 2010, Shanghai easily surpasses the record previously detained by Tokyo. The second most populated urban agglomeration, the Guangzhou-Shenzhen conurbation reaches on its side 47.5 millions of inhabitants. First, this paper explains why these significant population figures are not (and cannot be) official figures due to the official Chinese definition of a city which is in total opposition with the exploratory analysis approaches used in western human sciences and statistics. Second, it briefly explains the morphological definition and the methodology used in this research in relation to Chinese data availability. The results presented in this paper thus avoid the abusive use of superlatives that are invading the literature about megacities at the expense of global understanding of the phenomenon. In this respect, the size of the Chinese agglomerations are first relativized to the size of China, to the recent development choices operated by the government, and finally to the place in the Chinese civilization within the urban history of mankind. The morphological approach also highlights the new physical shapes taken recently by metropolis all over the world, the latter being resolutely more polycentric and extensive than by the past. Since they are the biggest agglomerations in the world, Shanghai and Guangzhou finally give us a lot to think on definitions, concepts and challenges that finally go far beyond the sole case of China.

The intention of this paper is to present research results that aimed to analyze small cities within a metropolitan area. Economic, demographic and spatial aspects help to identify general logic and private logics in this urban and regional dynamics. The paper presents elements that confirm or deny the idea that a small town located next to a large economically dynamic center can provide better social and economic performance.

This paper focuses on rumors that have been circulating in the favelas of Santa Marta and City of God since November 2008, when police occupied these favelas where were launched later the two first Pacifying Police Units in the city of Rio de Janeiro. In this paper, I suggest that analyzing these “improvised news” may help to understand the changes in concerns and public problems that affect the routines of “pacified” favelas residents in the last five years. This reflection is based on an ethnographic research conducted in Santa Marta since 2009 and in the City of God since 2012.

This paper analyzes the access to adequate feeding conditions for artisanal fishermen from the Campos Basin. A study based on an empirical approach carried out in seven municipalities on the north coast of the state of Rio de Janeiro affected by oil and gas activities. The "Food Survey for Fishermen" survey was carried out within a sample of 3,278 families of artisanal fishermen in the framework of the Census PEA-Pescarte, using the methodology of the Brazilian Scale of Food Insecurity - EBIA. The results point out a significant degree of Food Insecurity in the cohort investigated. The situation is a paradox for families producing food and points out the need for better public policies focused on the family of fishermen.

From a historical-spatial approach, this paper examines how, during the decades that go from 1970 to 2020, the current land situation in Amapá has defined. Priority is described the action of the State, private capital, squatters and traditional communities, influenced in the form of distribution and concentration of land ownership. Therefore, five territorial strategies or policies, present in the agrarian issue in Amapá are described and discussed: 1) the federalization of lands; 2) the granting of public lands for large projects and agricultural companies; 3) the policy of colonization or rural settlements; 4) the regularization of squattors and the Terra Legal program; and 5) land regularization of quilombola communities.

Observing, apprehending and learning about geographic space are not banal intellectual tasks. This is the starting point for our paper instigated by the experience of crossing the border between Amapá and French Guiana. Organized as a political geography exploratory expedition, the trip provided estrangement and enchantment. The text has two main goals: reflecting about the variations of contact with the terrain (field work, excursion and expedition) and geographic knowledge about places in the 21st century, and to explain the travel experience from the city of Oiapoque in Amapá to Cayenne, a frontier of particular characteristics. Taking as a starting point that this is not a common border, the question proposed is: what does the experience of crossing it reveal to us about the scales of political geography and geopolitics perceived and practiced on each of its sides

The paper analyzes the water availability of the Brazilian Semiarid region in the face of its water infrastructure and the challenges of the new urban-regional dynamics, through a bibliographic, documentary and cartographic production research, together with the data collection from the main surface reservoirs, wells and social technologies in the area. It was found that the Semiarid region has historically been the target of water infrastructure policies for different uses, which in turn are concentrated in some states, although they contemplate all of them. Recently, this territory has undergone transformations, aggregating population flows and productive arrangements, which demand increasing needs in the urban-regional context. Thus, the water issue in the Semi-arid region remains a challenge for management, capable of making the existing water infrastructure compatible with the growing demands of the new urban-regional dynamics, in the context of the vulnerability of climate droughts.

This paper intends to analyze the existing contractions in the incentive of Brazilian federal public power to the food production and to the production of biodiesel to the space of Bahia’s State dry lands. For that, the effects of the National Program of Production and Use of Biodiesel (PNPB) and the Brazilian Program of Food Acquisition (PAA) to the territorial formation of the Morro do Chapéu (BA) city was analyzed, specially, during the period between 2007 and 2012. The paper is based on the oral history methodology made through a series of interviews with family farmers that participated of the activities of both programs. The rising of employment and familiar incomes of family farmers and the intensification of technical basis in localities of the municipality are some results of the federal public action and the local productive and social organization. However, series of evidences present the challenges to the public programs development and to development of family farm in Brazil.

The Brazilian Amazon is a very specific space in relation to the rest of the country. More than a century ago, the Amazon received the impacts of policies and development phases marked subsequently by the rubber cycle, the construction of the TransAmazon Highway, and the implementation of dams and hydropower plants. The analysis of the spacial and scalar impacts of those three fundamental moments in the construction of the modern Amazonian territory is the main objective of this paper. We will use a variety of bibliographic references, historical information combined with fieldwork (including interviews, questionnaires, and both primary and secondary sources) related to the most recent focus of research which has the phase of construction of hydropower plants as main example. Spacial analysis is the basis of the research presented by this paper and its sub-sections follow the main moments of territorial transformations in the Amazon covering a period of about a century.

This paper analyzes the main demographic changes in the rural areas of Brazil between 1991 and 2010. Results highlight that, though with a slight slowdown in the 2000s, the rural exodus persists in all regions, either in those very dynamic as well as in the poor ones. The level of educational attainment is an important determinant of the rural exodus, which reinforces the propensity of the youngsters, particularly women, to leave the rural residence in search of better opportunities of employment, income and social stability. The rural family is now characterized by a couple with only one child in school age and with a greater dependence on older relatives with income from pensions. Finally, the paper discusses the implications of these changes to the sustainability of the agricultural activity in the medium and long term, especially for small and vulnerable family production units.

This paper seeks to do an exploratory analysis of the changes observed in the hotel sector in three cities in three different countries and continents. Joining information from official databases, direct survey in hotels and hotel websites, and interviews with industry representatives, an inventory and analysis of the changes observed in hotel supply in Lisbon (Portugal), Maputo (Mozambique) and São Paulo (Brazil) throughout 2020 and 2021 is made. Results show that suspension of activity, with temporary closure during the most critical periods of the pandemic, and partial reduction of supply to reduce operational costs, were the most common strategies followed by hotels in the three cities, with consequences in job losses. Other changes of a more structural nature, such as rebranding processes and permanent closure of hotels found significant variations among the cities studied. The adoption of different policy measures in the various countries and their varying exposure to international tourism explain partly these differences.

The city of Natal, capital of the State of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, emerged and evolved “in the shadow” of a river, named Potengi. During its history of over four hundred years, the city sometimes approximates, sometimes distances itself from the river, in a movement which is not only physical, but also social and symbolic. This paper proposes an analysis of this relation according to five historical periods – called “Times” in this work - which express, in terms of predominance, this somehow contradictory movement of approximation and dissociation between city and river or between river and city. They are : Time 1. The river as an ally to the emerging city (1599-1614); Time 2. Commerce, river and city (1700-1900); Time 3. The river as an obstacle to the city (1850-1916); Time 4. The aviation approximating the river to the city (1920-1945); Time 5. The river “invisible” to the city (since 1945). Without any pretension to completion – after all, it is a history of over four centuries – this paper highlights, however, specific expressions of historical processes which are quite longer involving the relation between the city of Natal and the Potengi River.

This sequence of the paper “Vidal historian” (http://confins.revues.org/9636) aims to situate the geographer Paul Vidal de la Blache (1845-1918) in a slow process of institutionalization of geography in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; and in his own transition from historian to geographer. His certification in history from the École Normale Supérieure and École francaise d’Athènes, and his subsequent relationships with historians (even after been recognized as a geographer), marked his background and career and has been analysed in the first paper. From this confluence of history and geography emerged an original conception of geographical time. This is the specif notion that I intend to depict and define as an important methodological tool to the study of Human Geography and, notably, to the field geographer and will be analysed in this second paper.

The objective of this paper is to use empirical data obtained from official sources (police reports) to report the types of serial offenders operating in Belo Horizonte for their areas of activity. From the theoretical approaches on the subject, the study defined as an object of study (serial criminals) with the space-time cut in Belo Horizonte, from 01/01/2011 to 12/31/2013 and the categories of crimes and misdemeanors penalties, as defined in Brazilian legislation with at least 4 events in the period analyzed. For the identification between the commuters and marauders typologies, the spatial distribution of the events and the authors' place of residence were verified, using as a parameter the methodology proposed by Canter and Larkin (1993). The results indicated that there is a specific type of spatial behavior for each serial criminal, with no predominance of typology in quantitative terms. There was no increase in criminal outreach for a longitudinal series of events. On average, it has been shown that offenders who travel greater distances to commit their crimes have a tendency to concentrate their crimes in a certain area, the case of the commuter, rather than spreading over a specific area, as it seems to be more typical of the marauder.

The peripheral habitat of contemporary society is a place of socio-spatial inequalities in numerous Brazilian medium-sized cities. Both popular and upper social classes subdivisions are located in the periphery, where the infrastructure is precarious, with little availability of quality public transportation or few commercial and services zones nearby for the inhabitants. This paper proposes to highlight the socio-spatial inequalities in terms of both forms and social contents of two peripheral neighborhoods of a medium-sized Brazilian city. The spatial analysis shows that the distance from the center leads to a change in the daily practices of the inhabitants, especially in their mobility. A reflection about an ongoing process of socio-spatial fragmentation from a preliminary analysis of two peripheral neighborhoods constitutes the result of the article.

Structure, process, function and form in the agrarian sector in the nortwest of Rio Grande do Sul -Integration and employing of the concepts and methods of Geography often are very complex, especially when using referential contexts that comprise a wide range of academic immersion. Often this may complicate the understanding of certain events in a broader study setting, in particular because it requires recovering some history that might help in defining today settings in which certain segments of society act. This paper intends to evaluate how did develop understanding and applying of the Brazilian Forest Code, Federal Law No. 4771 dated Nov 15, 1965, repealed in 2012, and, on the other side, how the usage und settlement process of the territory in the Northwestern region of Rio Grande do Sul took place. To make this study possible, we took the European settlement process in Rio Grande do Sul, the migratory flux, deforestation, agriculture activities as well as degradation and the environmental conscience in these times acquired as a basis. The connections required to understand both scenes assumed, the process of soil occupation and usage and the evolution of the forest code, will be found through the writings of Milton Santos (1985), who discusses structure, process, function and form as categories of the geographic method. The discussions the author posed will allow to identify several periods existent in the posed scenes and disturbs therein. The relations that establish between structure, process, function and form, soil occupation and usage aspects and the understanding and applying of environment legislation assume the concept of space that establishes an objective reality that is a social product of a permanent transformation process. As space imposes its own reality, it is obvious that there are at least two different rhythms to be considered in the posed issues of regional investigation: time spent for regional settlement - that renders the conflict with nature under the view of its occupation - and that will bear new forms plain of furrows that will tell the future history of the region; the political time - presented by public politics and legal evolution - that happens left far behind regional development. It behooves the researchers to follow the applying of the new laws and adjustments to them to allow the continuity of the evaluations begun in this paper.

Brazilian Semiarid Rural Development: recent transformations, challenges and prospects- Brazilian Semiarid has been characterized as a problem region in Brazil. Although rich in natural resources, the Semiarid faces severe ecological constraints, mostly associated with periodic occurrence of severe drought that leaves a trail of poverty and dismay. It is identified by social, economic and political backwardness, and known as the land of “coronéis”, which symbolize the institutional backwardness that has been dominant in the region over the centuries. Currently the Semiarid concentrates the largest share of Brazilian rural population living in poverty and extreme poverty conditions. Although this picture is still partially true, it does not take into account a “new” scenario that is emerging in this region fostered by public and private investments in infrastructure, industries, mines and agriculture, and by social policies as well. In the recent period, the Northeast Region, the Semiarid included, has benefited from a wide range of initiatives of the federal government, which are generating numerous positive effects that have the potential to transform the structures of the Semiarid and insert it into a virtuous cycle accumulation. The results of this intervention are still uncertain, especially in rural areas, where massive poverty does hinder, and maybe block at all, the inclusion of large share of the population into the new wave of development and opportunities created by these investments. The main goal of this paper is to discuss the challenges and prospects for overcoming rural poverty and promoting development in Brazilian Semiarid. Besides, the paper presents a broad socioeconomic picture of the region and discusses some of the key changes underway. The analysis draws from Brazilian government’s documents and academic studies, and is based on collection and processing of statistical data with the assistance of GIS (Geography Information System) techniques. The spatialization of socioeconomic indicators by municipality revealed marked heterogeneity and indicates that rural poverty is not homogeneous across the region. This paper proposes that a three-pillars strategy to combat rural poverty. The first one is to protect the poor population by reducing exposure to severe insecurities which have undermines the potentialities of the poor throughout their lives. The second one is to interrupt the reproduction of poverty, preventing that poor childhood of today is poor youth of tomorrow, and the poor youth of today is the head of a new poor domicile. Finally, the third one is inserting the rural poor in the chains of production and generating of wealth, so that they can generate enough income to take up their strategies lives autonomously. This strategy involves specifics goals, different temporal dimensions, differentiate scope and focus; it requires high politic and operational capacity to coordinate actions in many areas and to implement both universal and more selective policies, which imply in hard choices by the government.

This paper analyses the construction of the Environmental Impact Assessment procedure and the implementation of the environmental licensing instrument in Brazil from a perspective of history, society, politics and both internal and external contexts that influenced the decision making process, which reflect in the definition of public policies on this area. The analysis attempts to understand the technical issues of the federal environmental licensing in Brazil, throughout the environmental issue history and the emergence of the main related legal instruments and finally approaches the public policies concerned with Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) regarding the social, economical, and political contexts. Thus, the analytical axis of this paper is the decision making processes, which is related to the production of political subjects and education for the power. The analysis shows that events that are apparently external to the procedures performed by technicians responsible for assessing applications for federal environmental licenses influence in a decisive way the results of this technical work, although this influence is not always so obvious or straightforward, especially for lay views. In general, the article suggests that it is necessary to review the way it treats the technical and human relations during EIA process. The conclusion is that purely technical and scientific tools, although academically well accepted may not be enough to make a difference in this arena and that a broader view that understands the subtle relationships among politics, human relations and technical procedures should guide any attempt at intervention aimed at improving these procedures, both the EIA as a process, and the Environmental Licensing as administrative instrument. From this comes that, despite the apparent technical-scientific approach, illustrated by environmental studies in theory underpinning the EIA, decision-making is actually a reflection of the political game that permeates the entire process.

Over the past five to ten years, Brazil’s residential real estate market has experienced a marked expansion both in terms of housing starts and sales. This expansion, which has rapidly transformed Brazilian cities, was spurred by an unprecedented intertwining of the financial markets and the production/consumption of the urban built environment in the country. In the wake of this process, many scholars have interpreted these changes as representative of the financialization of the economy, since it expresses financial investors’ growing ability to derive income from changes in the urban space. This paper attempts to contribute to this ongoing debate by arguing that the process of financialization, which in the past few years has taken hold of the property sector in Brazil, has caused a restructuring of the links between socio-spatial scales. In the first part, we have provided an overview of the changes that have taken place in the real estate business as an outcome of its connections with the financial system. In the second part, based on a set of interviews conducted between 2011 and 2012 and on data collected about the sector, we have brought attention to the types of articulation between agents operating at different socio-spatial scales. In this analysis, the articulation between the global and the national scales is illustrated by developers’ need to make their businesses more “transparent” in order that the papers they issue in financial markets can be aggregated to the portfolio of large foreign institutional investors. The linkages between the national and the local scales, in terms, are examined here as resulting from the partnerships established between large, financialized developers and regional small and medium-sized builders. In both cases, we have attempted to shed light on the disagreements and tensions that have resulted from the convergence of agents that embody distinct socio-spatial logics, thus demonstrating that the geographical scale, far from being a fixed dimension of social relations, is itself socially produced and changed and, because of that, it internalizes tensions and contradictions. The paper concludes by highlighting the importance of the construction of scalar linkages for the reproduction of financial power.

After presenting the historical and tourism context of Sabah in Malaysia, this paper analyses the staging of ethnicity for tourists within Sabah Village. Depending on the socio-cultural profile of the tourists, the visit can be perceived as: a reinforcement of nationalist sentiment, a reinforcement of a sense of superiority and difference between 'us' and 'them', or as a visit that fosters a quest for exoticism and primitivism. These different types of visits are linked by the playfulness of the activities offered.

This paper results from the analysis of railway stations that belong to the Companhia Paulista de Estradas de Ferro (CPEF) located in São Paulo, SP, Brazil, with emphasis on their refunctionalization, since they are part of the state’s cultural heritage. The methodology of the study comprised an analysis of the state’s processes of listed pieces of real estate, a literature review and results of field work. The first section deals with general remarks about cultural heritage and two of its typologies, i. e., industrial heritage and railway heritage. Afterwards, to contextualize railway activities, it introduces railways as dynamic agents that formed São Paulo state. The second section highlights the council that defends the state’s historical heritage, i. e., the Conselho de Defesa do Patrimônio Histórico, Arqueológico, Artístico e Turístico do Estado de São Paulo (Condephaat) and listing of railway assets. Taking into consideration that railway stations are the most expressive cultural assets in this typology in the state and in the country, this study aims at reflecting upon the role of their listing, changes in the conception of preservation of isolated assets to valorize the railway complex in the territory and landscape context, refunctionalization of railway stations that comprise the CPEF’s remaining cultural heritage and its new social uses.

On the one hand, the withdrawal of natural resources from the subsoil has been defended as an important generator of foreign exchange and as a mechanism for economic growth. On the other hand, those responsible (environmentalists and / or affected groups) highlight their environmental and social impacts, their inability to promote local development and to generate benefits for localities and those responsible. Based on these considerations, the objective of the paper is an analysis of the impacts of the neo-extractive mining activity in the state of Amapá, particularly the extraction of gold. Therefore, the pertinent bibliography of the area is read, with the support of a database (RAISG, SIGMINE-ANM, among others). To illustrate this situation, we can base our analysis on several projects that already exist in Amapá, either in the legal sphere (mining companies) or by illegal mining (artisanal and small scale mining), as we can see in the maps generated. They highlight what already exists in legal mining (authoritative titles) and expectations (about the right to mine, which are represented by the requirements). Thus, it is observed that the socioenvironmental impacts arising from the neo-extractive activity of minerals favor the deforestation of protected areas and / or indigenous territories, particularly due to the illegal mining that crosses the borders of the state of Amapá (French Guiana and Suriname), the which makes it possible to observe that, despite the legal framework, the neo-extractive mining activity is responsible for favoring a degradation of the Amazonian biome, with the presence of land grabbing, the creation of highways, in addition to affecting the traditional mode.

In this paper, focused on the Amazonas river’s channel, that is, on the geographic slice where Pará state’s municipalities Santarém, Belterra and Mojuí are located, some projects will be presented as priority (Henry Ford’s project, with the foundation of Fordlândia (1928) and Belterra (1934) and the implantation and bankruptcy of TECEJUTA), short term projects, here called “ostrich flights”; and the arrival of the agribusiness in these lands of the north of the country. The methodology is supported by the application of the Geosystem-Territory-Landscape (GTP) model, which associates the source geo-system to the resource territory and the identity landscape, that is, a geographic attempt to simultaneously shade the globality, diversity and interactivity of the whole environmental system. Since 1997 soy agribusiness advances in Pará’s west region, chiefly due to government incentives and support from Banco da Amazônia (BASA), which supports mainly large rural farmers, leaving family farming on the sidelines. First, the mechanized agriculture will take possession of already deforested areas, because the occupation in the Amazonasriver channel region was already consolidated, - due to Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária (INCRA) settlements, in the beginning of the 1970s. However, in the following years, deforestation of patches of the forest existing in the area was observed. Soybean producers adopted/adopt the strategy of deforesting from the borders of these patches, as recorded from Landsat images and also with photos taken in the locations. It is clear that the arrival of the agribusiness in the Amazonasriver channel brought significant socio-environmental impacts; (b) increased deforestation of significant existing forest patches (which still exist, though reduced); (c) brought a culture totally different from that of the region; (d) and, worst of all, created needs for INCRA to collect forest areas to implant ‘Corta Corda Settlement Project’ in forest areas.

This text aims to contribute to the theoretical debate on the concepts of city and urban, based on the analysis of the material and symbolic relevance of agriculture in the former agglomerations of Caracol, (Maia), Tenochtitlán (Aztec), Machu Picchu and Ollantaytambo (Inkas), highlighting their respective archaeological and historiographic evidences and theses. In addition to making considerations about food production systems, the following theoretical and methodological aspects are discussed based on the cases studied: (a) applicability of the concepts of city and urban to the study of pre-colonial societies in America; (b) the role played by the center on promoting agriculture; (c) agriculture as a technology of urbanism towards adversity; (d) relevance of Abya Yala’s native cities study. This research was based on four methodological steps, that included bibliographic review about city and urban space, as well as specific publications on the cases cited. The evidence highlighted in this paper emphasizes the need to decolonize theoretical concepts and recognize urban agriculture as an ancient and current strategy to deal with past and present challenges.

This paper examines the relationship between the concept of territory, as understood by modern Western society in its political dimension, and indigenous spatial elaborations, discussing both its fundamental differences and its convergences. It also sets out to examine the new forms and perceptions that emerge from the interaction between these two modes of thought and the production of space. From the history of the formation of the indigenous Yanomami land, I argue that the concept of political territory, while being an alien and relatively limited category vis-à-vis the theoretical richness of indigenous spatial elaborations, is today appropriated by the Yanomami leaders as an exercise in “controlled equivocation” (Viveiros de Castro, 2018), in the face of attempts to fragment their living space, imposed by the advance of the agro-extractive front, in particular mining activity. However, the construction of the Yanomami political territory in Brazil is not limited only to its legal demarcation, but it is a permanent effort of indigenous organizations which, in addition to the challenge of facing external pressures (invasions and legislative maneuvers), must also guarantee the ethno-territorial unity of a hundred villages which establish intercommunity relations that are always contextual and specific.

This paper aims to contribute to the knowledge of relationship between metropolis and medium city on Amazon from the analysis of the relationship established between Belém and the medium city of Macapá (capital of Amapá State). More than a concern with spatial relationships, it seeks an analysis of economic dynamics and their geographical consequences as part of general process of production and reproduction of capitalist society in this portion of Brazilian territory. The main argument developed in this paper is that relationships between Belém and Macapá must be understood on the core of the process of concentration and centralization of capital that has reached the country.

Changes in land cover (deforestation, urbanization) in the Brazilian Amazon have a strong effect on the temperatures at local scale. This paper compares the temperatures of July 2007 between the urban area, the area deforested for pasture and forest in the region of Alta Floresta (Mato Grosso). The climatic changes are marked during the day but especially in the beginning and the end of the day (with significant differences between temperatures of 2 ° C to 4.3 ° C between the forest sector and the city center). The cleared area is generally warmer than the forest area. A second part of the paper concerns the study of the urban heat island for three cities of Mato Grosso: Rondonopolis, Sorriso and Sinop. Observations made by the mobile transect method in July 2009 show that temperatures are higher in dense urbanized areas than in residential areas. The effect of urban heat island is particularly well marked, especially at night and during the dry season but, locally, the role of topography and urban parks is also very sensitive (cool areas).

The “geograficity” of symbolic forms: The Sanctuary of Fatima da Sierra Grande in analysis.This paper discusses the geographical basis of symbolic forms, choosing the culture as an essential element for such research. The Sanctuary of Fátima da Serra Grande, located in St. Benedict city, Northern of the Ceará State, is analyzed in a geographical and phenomenological perspective, considering it as a symbolic form of tourist attraction. The article considers the concept of geographic originally proposed by Eric Dardel, as fundamental for thinking the relationship between motivation and appreciation of the devotees in search of new Catholic shrines. Then, a recovery is made as large sanctuaries influenced the cultural geography of this small and dynamic center of pilgrimage has been developing in northeastern Brazil. At the end of the paper presents the characteristics expressing Fátima da Serra Grande as a symbolic model of Catholicism Marian conciliator of traditions and innovations and manager of a religious tourism under the leadership of the regional church.

This paper analyzes the main changes in Brazilian Law no. 11,952/2009, known as the Amazon Public Policy for Land Regularization (PRFA), demonstrating that the Brazilian Government has been implementing a public policy of privatization of illegally invaded federal lands (land-grabbing), causing damage to the rural land structure and for the environment of the region.

This paper aims to verify if there are changes in the trends of detection rates of climatic changes derived from the air temperature in 54 conventional meteorological stations (EMC’s) in the Brazilian Amazon. Employed databases from the daily series of maximum and minimum air temperature, with minimum durations of 30 years. The Rclimdex 1.9.0 software was used in the processing and quality control of 16 statistical indexes, adopting a significance level of 10% (p

The pioneers polish immigrants arrived in Curitiba after leaving the state of Santa Catarina, by the hand of Sebastião Saporski, since 1871. This immigration is motivated by some Paraná’s authorities, with the intention of, as soon as they were living in the rural colonies on the outskirts of the city, the immigrants produced vegetables and create small animals, to serve the city market. Larger part of the polish immigrants in Curitiba are originally from the farm, however, it is not null the presence of Polish-Brazilians that worked in others productive sectors, including in local intellectuality and policy. In this paper we are going to bring part of the history of this immigrant group, a presentation about the process of integration that they had in Curitiba’s urban life along the 20th Century, as the creation of newspapers, cultural centers and sporting clubs in the first part of the century, and also look at the work of councilors Polish-Brazilians, that could see in the naming addresses process, an opportunity to honor their ancestors. For a better view about the following subject, we present maps with the location and the description of the streets, saying their dimensions, the commerce establishments, public transportation lines and other elements. E to finish, we present some people behind the streets, Polish-Brazilian will have their biographies presented here, in order to serve as an analysis about esteem, recognizing and prestige that they have – even posthumously – with the community.