Os Caminhos da água na cidade de Macapá-AP: espaço amazônico e territorialidades contracoloniais

Abstract

This thesis is a study on the interaction between the city of Macapá-AP and the Amazon River, using a sensory-world approach to understand the multidimensionality present in the relationship between the city and the water. In this sense, we seek a new way of seeing the city, with the aim of contributing to thinking about the cities of tomorrow. A shift in perspective is what will lead us to the future, enabling us, as a society, to traverse the horizon of the Anthropocene. The central question driving this thesis is: what is the relationship between the significance of the Amazon River and the production of urban space in Macapá-AP? This thesis is developed from an understanding of the power relations inherent in the urban processes involving the Amazon River and the city of Macapá, based on an understanding of the colonialities that persist in the space according to the reproduction of forms of domination between social subjects who hold power in the production of space and those who are made invisible. The main objective is to understand the intertwining between the perception of reality and the production of urban space throughout the temporalities inherent to the city of Macapá. This research aims to clarify whether space is also one of the fields in which the dynamics between the conquered and the conquerors are reproduced, in order to investigate whether colonialities persist in urban arrangements and forms. Thus, the specific objectives are: a) to discuss the power of coloniality in urban space; b) to reveal the meanings, discourses, and images existing in the relationship between water and urban space in Macapá; c) to analyze how the urban processes of the city of Macapá are associated with its relationship with water. The theoretical and methodological foundations of this thesis lie in the pluriversality existing in critical thought on the colonial dimension, in addition to using interdisciplinarity and phenomenology that align to recognize the singularity that exists in the Amazonian world. Through exploring the waterways, we were able to grasp the multi-social diversity present in Macapá, as it revealed the complexity of the Amazonian landscape and the possibility of counter-colonization through its territories.