Experiência geracional e identidade de fronteira: representações sociais sobre o rural amazônico

Abstract

The article reflects on the conformation of the world view of a group of young people from a city in the southeast of Pará, Parauapebas, about the experience of living on an Amazonian border. The visions of common sense – on the one hand the promise of wealth and development; on the other hand, the image of crisis and violence – are contrasted by the representations effectively constructed by these young people in their daily lives, forming a generational experience marked by the sensation of transience. The discussion is based on research about the social representations of a group of 38 students of a Communication- Journalism course. For the most part, these students were born outside the Amazon region and experienced the social situation identified by several authors as being marked by the conflicting and transient dynamics that characterize the social processes of occupation of the Amazonian territory – a situation that is often identified as an ontological void. We test this perception by contrasting it with the actual daily experience of young people. To do so, we collect their social representations of where they live, inquiring about how their perceptions of the world and the rural Amazon are mediated by the intersubjective and media tissues that make up the Amazonian "frontier" as a space condemning to the transition and to the eventuality.