The Contribution of Marxism to Critical Geography of the 1970s-1980s.

• Grant number: 24/14411-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: November 01, 2024
• End date: October 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Geography - Human Geography
• Principal Investigator: Anselmo Alfredo
• Grantee: Bruno Proti Pissarra Bahia
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The discussions surrounding geographical thought and its object of study - a process of dispute within academia due to curricular fragmentation - lead us to analyze the periods and the main currents that have influenced the different thoughts within the discipline. With this in mind, the paper analyzes the influence of Marxist thought and its movement within the current called Critical Geography in the 1970s and 1980s, discussing whether there was any contribution to geographical thought, highlighting the role played by some Brazilian authors of important academic stature, such as Milton Santos and Ruy Moreira, as well as the historical contribution of other authors to the periods mentioned above, such as Pierre Monbeig. Important books/articles and a later master's thesis - by Paulo Scarim - on the period in question were selected as the basis for discussions on the importance of Marx's work on the subject. The expected results are based on the resumption of the debate on Marxism and geography, discussing the application of the historical-dialectical method to geographical studies. It is also believed that this study could provide a new line of discussion that contributes both to the intersection of Marxist theory and method for geographical production that is horizontalized in a radical perspective, and to presenting an analysis of how the capitalist mode of production promotes its contradictory development in a key period within the class struggle in Brazilian society, where workers raised questions that at that time needed to be answered from a perspective other than quantitative geography - which served the interests of the bourgeois class - but starting from the material reality that underpinned Brazil's productive development given the historical framework in question.