O espaço periurbano de Belém (PA) entre transformações, resistências e re-existências

Abstract

It is understood that the peri-urban spaces of cities in the Amazon are today border spaces, where it is possible to perceive disputes and coexistences between different productive activities and different ways of life, which have undergone rapid transformations in recent decades. Areas of urban expansion, enterprises and industrial facilities coexist with areas understood as traditional, occupied by riverside communities, indigenous and quilombola communities. On the one hand, we can see the movement of transformations (arrival of the new/modern, disarticulations), and, on the other hand, resistance (maintenance of the old/traditional, search for the maintenance of ways of life linked to nature). At first sight these movements function as opposites, or as double negation, thesis and antithesis. But there are also syntheses, which are manifestations of the culmination of several re-existences, in which apparent dichotomies coexist and the possibilities of possible paths for the Amazon reside. To understand the transformations and local resistance, the stages of urbanization (spatial-time) presented by Lefebvre (1999) were used, divided into rural, urban-industrial and urban-utopia eras. From a dialectical perspective, the rural era works as a thesis. This era is present today through manifestations understood in this dissertation as resistances. As an antithesis, the second stage of urbanization, the urban-industrial era, is understood here as transformations. As a synthesis, the era of urban-utopia is presented as a possibility to glimpse what was called re-existence. In an attempt to contemplate a little of the regional diversity, the object of study of this dissertation is built around the peri-urban space of Belém (PA), a city (and municipality) that works as a significant example for historically playing the role of an Amazon metropolis. To this end, the peri-urban space of Belém (PA) was analyzed considering the transformations and resistances that permeate its socio-spatial production throughout history, as well as the contemporary re-existences that demonstrate the potential for emancipation and strengthening of communities that depend on of nature management. The discussion about peri-urban spaces in different contexts was presented, bringing it closer to that of Amazonian cities. In the analysis of the peri-urban space of Belém (PA), it was concluded that historically this space was constituted as a regional extended peri-urban space, since Belém had great political and economic centrality, which made it possible to articulate and interact directly with several places within the Amazon. It is considered, however, that from the second half of the 20th century onwards, several national and international processes diminished the centrality of Belém and its ability to exert influence regionally. It was noted at the local scale that the availability of land in the peri-urban space of Belém makes the peripheral, the expansion area and the communities that depend on the management of nature mix. Through some selected case studies, the re-existences that permeate the socio-spatial production of the peri-urban space of Belém were also investigated and analyzed. The re-existences made it possible to visualize that the constitution of the peri-urban space of Belém is, on the one hand, directly linked to economic, political and cultural impositions from distant places, and at the same time, it presents an enormous potential for the emancipation of local communities, which emerges from the alliance between culture, nature, and social justice. It also points out the recognition of otherness as a path to the era of urban-utopia.