A Noção de região em Milton Santos: contribuições para pensar a Amazônia

Abstract

Considered one of the most important Brazilian intellectuals, Milton Almeida dos Santos (1926-2001) was a Bahian geographer who transcended his time and condition by proposing, from Latin America and, in particular, from the Brazilian territory, a revolutionary theory devoted to the reading and interpretation of the spatialities of the contemporary world. Taking into account the concerns of this productive intellectual regarding the understanding of the Brazilian socio-spatial formation in its totality, we investigate the potentialities that Milton Santos‟ contributions on the notion of region have in the interpretation of the contemporary reality of the Amazonian space. In this sense, we analyze the potentialities and developments of the theoretical-conceptual contributions of this geographer about the regional phenomenon, as well as seek to understand the pertinence of his discussions in the interpretation of contemporary Amazon. Based on the method of dialectical materialism, the research involves the procedures of bibliographical survey and analysis; documentary survey and analysis; content analysis; and contextual analysis. Therefore, it can be observed that, although the Amazon was not a central theme in the research developed by Milton Santos throughout his trajectory, it did not escape from the author‟s analytical and careful look towards the spatial totality, with emphasis both to the few but significant specific contributions that he elaborated and to the numerous mentions in which this regional space appears as examples for reflection; a fact that allows us to conclude that the Amazonian region has always been present in the elaborations of this Bahian intellectual and that his theories, categories, concepts and notions have great analytical potential for the unveiling of the processes that mark the recent socio-spatial dynamics of this important Brazilian subspace. His thought has influenced doctoral dissertations and master‟s thesis that, in the light of a dense incorporation of his theoretical-conceptual contributions, analyze the Amazon as a region in the contemporary world. We also accept that, based on the ideas of new horizontalities, conceived mainly from the example of the Amazonian traditional peoples and communities, it is possible to establish real active consensuses in the region, whose animated solidarity, once established, has the potentiality to build more humane bases to think about an other globalization and the possibility of a popular period of history.