History of School Geography during the gouvernement of Vargas (1930-1945): modern school discourse and territorial identity based on physical-natural themes

Author(s)

Thiago Manhães Cabral

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Geociências
• Defense date: 2022-03-15

Examining board members

Rafael Straforini; Carolina Machado Rocha Busch Pereira; Manoel Fernandes de Sousa Neto; Antonio Carlos Vitte; Maria Adailza Martins de Albuquerque

• Advisor: Rafael Straforini

Abstract

The aim of the research is to understand how School Geography of the Vargas national-patriotic government (1930-1945) activates, through physical-natural themes, the modernizing assumptions of its pedagogical discourse and the discursive meanings of Brazilian territory and national identity. To do so, we start from the assumption that the geographical knowledge linked to the themes of nature cross - or even build - specific meanings in which groups put in disputes, especially from the 1930s onwards, the discursive landmarks of School Geography, new struggles for meaning of school curriculum and the construction of territorial meanings based on national-patriotic ideas. In this movement, I assume the post-structuralist assumptions of Ernesto Laclau's Theory of Discourse as a method reference to analyze part of the history of the School Geography, considering it, in such a context, as an element-moment of politics. I made use of the methodological resources of qualitative research, privileging documental research, with the analysis of didactic materials of geography, school manuals and academic reference works for School Geography. I intend, in the end, to elucidate the materialization of the process of construction of meanings for the territory and for the nationality through the practices of signification of School Geography, identifying their impressions in pedagogical guidelines and in the didactic materials produced in the proposed analysis period, paying special attention for the analysis of the discourse inherent to the language, to the cartographic treatment and to the image surfaces that shape the representations of physical-natural themes. Finally, I think that this revisitation of the discursive functions and practices of School Geography in Brazil may be relevant for a reflection on the role of pedagogical practices in Geography when working the Brazilian space, practices that, in certain aspects, are preserved until today (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 18/08542-0 - History of School Geography during the government of Getúlio Vargas (1930-1945): modern school discourse and territorial identity based on physical-natural themes
• Grantee: Thiago Manhães Cabral
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate (Direct)