This article presents an interview with Ailton Krenak, which took place on April 14, 2022. Ailton Krenak is one of Brazil's most important indigenous leaders and is of outstanding historical importance in the struggle for the rights of indigenous peoples. As well as being an environmentalist and a great interpreter of Brazil, he has published several books over decades of intellectual production. He was the founder of the Union of Indigenous Peoples and a member of the Alliance of Forest Peoples. He holds an honorary doctorate from the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF) and was recently elected a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters (ABL).
Erosive processes are characterized as natural phenomena, being the main element in the process of terrain sculpting. However, human interventions in the environment break with dynamic equilibrium, which may influence the greater or lesser environmental vulnerability to erosion processes in each area. This article proposes an analysis of how the use of geoprocessing techniques can help in the identification of areas susceptible to erosion processes, as well as identify the patterns that justify the appearance of cores, from the analysis of the environmental vulnerability map of the Escola Técnica Estadual Augusto Tortolero Araújo (ETEC), located in the municipality of Paraguaçu Paulista - SP. The conclusions are that social and environmental aspects are inseparable, given that, through the mapping, the origins of the erosive processes in the school environment were verified, as well as guiding managers to seek measures aimed at preventing such processes.
Regarding the relevance of the content and meaning of the Encyclical Letter/On Care for the Common Home Laudato sì for the reflection on the basic roots of the planet’s destruction intensification and acceleration, the general objective of this article is to interpret the text of this document, with the purpose of translating it in the sense of strengthening theoretical-empirical criticism for social mobilization for a better world. Thus, hermeneutics was chosen as the pertinent methodological path for the interpretation of the aforementioned document, scrutinizing its explicit and implicit meanings. The general conclusion is that, as a result from the process of reform of an ancient institution that can still contribute to the improvement of human beings and their ways of using, occupying and thinking about the territory, the Encyclical in question became a reference for reinforcing the various forms of resistance and mobilization towards the effective transformation of the world.
Geography is once again undergoing a movement of renewal within the critical current. The humanistic approach to Geography, based on phenomenology, considers life experience as fundamental, valuing contexts, experiences and feelings allied to spatial ideas. In view of this, the main objective of this article is to highlight space as an important category of analysis for geographic research, pointing it out as central, and cannot be abandoned or placed in a secondary plane in debates, even in those in which the contexts of experiences and feelings are evident. Dr. João Miranda Avenue and Dom Pedro II Avenue, main avenues in the city of Abaetetuba/PA, will be used as a spatial reflection. The consumption relationship shows that, despite seeming opposite, these forms of consumption are interconnected in some way and there is mutual interference in both. Which corroborates the premise: there is a need for a common sense of space in research.
Given the scarcity of research in tropical semi-arid environments, this article performs the geomorphological compartmentalization of the municipality of Campo Formoso (BA, Brazil), following the National Policy for Civil Defense and Protection (Law 12.608/2012) guidelines. The methodology was structured in four stages: (I) bibliographic review; (II) digital stereoscopy for aerial imagery analysis; (III) georeferencing, vectorization, and data integration in QGIS 3.30.0; and (IV) final writing. Results identified units such as the Campo Formosense Pediplano, Northern and Residual Plateaus, Terraces, and Alluvial Plains. Moreover, the presence of wind farms in the region highlights the relevance of geomorphological studies for territorial planning, supporting urban management and environmental preservation. Such studies contribute to risk mitigation and promote sustainable development in Bahia state’s semi-arid region.
The fragmented capitalist city is shaped by multiple social agents; in the Brazilian urban context, landowners and real estate developers stand out for fostering speculation, producing artificial land scarcity, and driving urban sprawl to extract land rent. This article presents a qualitative analysis of the recent urban expansion of Londrina and its relationship with the city’s “edges,” focusing on rural–urban transition areas. The research seeks to understand this expansion through the approval of new subdivisions, emphasizing the main elements of this process and its consolidation over decades, with particular attention to the 2010s. Currently, urban expansion takes place through the development of middle- and upper-income subdivisions at the urban periphery, often lacking infrastructure, while already serviced areas remain vacant awaiting valorization.The methodological procedures included a literature review on the expansion of Londrina since its origins, fieldwork, and consultations with municipal agencies to obtain up-to-date data
The article discusses the relationship between the management of public water and basic sanitation services and the contradictions of the capitalist system in Rio Claro/SP (Brazil). The discussion reveals the historical trajectory of local water management, marked by the public sector’s difficulty in ensuring universal access and by the concentration of infrastructure in areas with greater purchasing power. It addresses the recent process of transforming the Departamento Autônomo de Água e Esgoto (DAAE), which, despite being an autonomous agency, is undergoing changes to become a public company with private participation, introducing market logic into an essential service. Popular resistance to privatization is highlighted, evidenced by public hearings and opinion surveys, which point to problems related to quality, access, risks of tariff increases, and layoffs. Finally, it is emphasized that these processes reflect the contradictions of contemporary capitalism, as access to basic services is conditioned by the ability to pay, thereby expanding social and territorial inequalities.
The aim of the article was to develop a flood vulnerability map for the Una River basin, using the hierarchical method, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), by selecting the most significant variables in the region through Geographic Information System (GIS). The methodology was based on four stages: characterization of the study area, selection of variables, preparation of thematic maps and application of the AHP method. As a result, the basin presented high vulnerability within 70% of the basin’s areas, followed by 21% of medium susceptibility. With this, it is suggested as important to provide contingency plans for the municipalities that are within the perimeter of the basin, to prevent risk situations for the population.
This article analyzes the impacts of urban revitalization policies on the historic center of Campos dos Goytacazes, with a particular focus on the socio-spatial consequences of heritage management practices. The deliberate creation of urban voids through the demolition of buildings by property owners suggests the adoption of a speculative and materially destructive strategy. This approach reflects a broader logic of anticipation and expectation regarding the future valorization of centrally located, heritage-listed sites. Spatial analysis of the area revealed a significant increase in the conversion of vacated plots previously occupied by heritage-protected structures into parking facilities. The findings point out a persistent conflict between the municipal administration and private owners of historic properties. This tension has facilitated the emergence of parking lots as both a mechanism for land banking in a high-value urban context and as an instrument for enabling future cycles of real estate speculation and economic restructuring.
This article analyzes the transformation of the hydrosocial territory of the Maleku indigenous people in Costa Rica between 1860 and 1996, focusing on the reconfiguration of their relationships with water due to state modernization projects. Through historical analysis, semi-structured interviews and ethnographic fieldwork, it examines how water infrastructure has been used as a mechanism of territorial control, altering social interaction and indigenous cosmovision. It is argued that the domestication of water displaced community practices into the private sphere, affecting social cohesion and the sense of belonging. The results underline the importance of considering water not only as a resource, but also as a central element in the construction of malekuy identity and power relations. Finally, it is proposed that public policies adopt a participatory and intercultural approach to guarantee the autonomy of indigenous communities in water management.
Contemporary urbanization highlights socio-spatial dynamics at the regional scale, which underscores the need for more comprehensive analytical scales to be used in urban studies. In this context, commuting intensifies spatial relations between two or more municipalities, leading to the formation of urban agglomerations. This study adopted the idea of Population Arrangement for the territorial area of Maringá, since this delimitation considers criteria of integration between municipalities. The aim of this article is to analyze the influences of the agglomeration process on the population arrangement of Maringá, using commuting data from the 2000 and 2010 demographic censuses. The data, processed using IBM SPSS STATISTICS 20 software, were presented using origin-destination matrices, cartographic products, and other resources. The results showed a significant increase in terms of quantity and distance in commuting between municipalities, highlighting the complexity of commuting flows in the population arrangement analyzed.
Agroecology can be understood from different theoretical, methodological and paradigmatic perspectives. We are conceiving agroecology as a form of resistance carried out by movements in the face of capitalism, especially in Latin America. Our objective is to analyze agroecology in the paradigmatic debate within Geography, basing it on the concept of socioterritorial technologies (TST), allied to the actions of the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem terra (MST) in the Rodeio settlement, in Presidente Bernardes/SP (Brazil). To this end, we started by conducting interviews, militant research and bibliographical surveys. Within the paradigmatic debate, agroecology establishes itself as a field in dispute, in the context of immaterial territory, materializing itself in actions and technologies, transforming territories into agroecological territories. In the Rodeio settlement, the MST has implemented three socio-territorial technologies that involve native seeds, production and commercialization, allowing the autonomy and permanence of peasants in their territories through agroecology, as a path to emancipation. KEYWORDS: Paradigms; Territories; Agroecology; Socioterritorial Technologies. Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra.
This article presents the meanings attributed to emancipation or emancipations in the light of popular struggles in Latin America and the Caribbean. A fundamental argument is to reveal how contemporary struggles, especially those of indigenous peoples, peasants, quilombolas, forest and water peoples, bring to light dimensions of the territoriality of capital and its territorial domination that need to be analyzed more closely, in order to transcend our own understanding of emancipation as a political horizon. In the light of historical-dialectical materialism and a conceptual approach based on critical agrarian geography and territorial sociology, the article traces the trajectory of this popular struggle and its conceptions of emancipation in close connection with our full history, in its ontological and epistemic foundations. One of the article's main premises is the urgent need to understand emancipation not only as a human dimension, but also as the emancipation of nature, an essential condition for human and non-human existence.
The aim of this article is to show that in addition to the links between global elites, there are links within the capitalist system for the control of territories and resistance to mechanisms of oppression, and more specifically, unlikely and similar forms of resistance in Latin America. We discuss the experiences lived by the authors in the communities of Bangkukuk Taik (Nicaragua) and Coque (Brazil) as a way of disobeying the physical and linguistic borders imposed on the region by colonial invasions, in order to discuss the similarity of a structure that oppresses us in distant territories, but connects us through the diversity of emancipatory struggles that dismantle this colonial system of life annihilation.
The inclusion of students with visual disabilities in Geography teaching can be made of mane challenges. One of the most relevant is the adaptation of teaching resources and methodologies. This article aims to develop a methodological proposal for students with visual disabilities based on the use of a tactile map. To do it, we used a tactile map of the campus of the University of Northern Paraná, Cornélio Procópio-PR. It is proposed that a tactile map developed on a local scale allows the students to understand and perceive the place in which they live, promoting, in addition to accessibility, the assimilation of geographic knowledge in a meaningful and contextualized way.
Population dynamics, with emphasis on migration and permanence, must be understood both as complementary and a multi-determined phenomenon, have always been present in the academic field. However, due to the dynamism inherent to the most diverse societies, migration and permanence are total social facts that can help to understand the ways in which socio-spatial relations are produced and reproduced in contemporary society, especially at the beginning of the 21st century. Research on these themes in human geography may present specific or even general dynamics, including population dynamics. This text is the result of a reflection based on an interdisciplinary reading of mobility and migration (bibliographic research) and research findings that have produced empirical evidence. This text hopes to contribute to the debate on spatial mobility, migration, temporary stays, and permanent transits. Finally, it revisits debates, some already established in the academic field but in need of updating, especially in population geography.
This article analyzes the relationship between international regulations and public policy on sustainable development, resilience, Payments for Environmental Services (PES), and their impacts on urban management in the context of the dispute between a theoretical framework of neoliberal policies and the capacity to preserve social and natural heritages. Through a critical sociology perspective, it proposes a review of the literature on the globalizing regulations of these concepts in their neoliberal forms. The analysis of a public policy experience in Mexico City—the Altépetl program— opens avenues for research and action in which the emancipatory potential of the territory stems and depends on new relational grammars between actors and concepts in dispute. The conclusion highlights the findings of this case study and the analyses that refine the emancipatory potential of the territory, reinforced by this public policy, against the theoretical and practical dispute it is imbued in.
This article offers a critical introduction to the principal essays of Uruguayan philosopher Alberto Methol Ferré, with particular emphasis on his seminal work El Uruguay como problema. It situates Methol Ferré’s thought in dialogue with a selection of texts addressing the broader theme of Latin American integration. The first section analyzes Uruguay’s historical dilemmas through Methol Ferré’s interpretative lens. The second section explores his argument that such challenges are not unique to Uruguay but are, in fact, shared across the national trajectories of Latin American countries south of the Río Bravo. Finally, the article engages with the problem of Latin American identity from both cultural and geopolitical perspectives, drawing attention to foundational texts that conceptualize the region’s history as a project of unity.
