Socio-spatial fragmentation and spatial practices of living: experiences and urban representations in intermediate cities in Bahia

Author(s)

Rizia Mendes Mares

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Presidente Prudente. 2023-03-28.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp). Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia. Presidente Prudente
• Defense date: 2022-12-20
• Advisor: Arthur Magon Whitacker

Abstract

The intensification in the implementation of closed residential habitats in medium-sized cities of Bahia has altered the spatial structure of these cities and resigned the content of life, changing the urban experience with a densification of the process of socio-spatial differentiation and the conditions of social inequality. Based on the spatial practices of living, we analyzed the production of urban space in Bahia, having as empirical dimensions the medium-sized cities of Feira de Santana and Vitória da Conquista and the urban agglomeration Ilhéus-Itabuna, also understood as a medium-sized city. Our main hypothesis was that the dimension of dwelling may reveal a deepening or superposition of new apartness processes, notably, the socio-spatial fragmentation, in face of the previous ones of self-segregation and imposed segregation, more settled in the center-peripheral spatial structures in contrast to the polycentric complex spatial structures, in combination with the previous ones. This was a qualitative research in Geography, working with 39 interviewed subjects with whom we approached the dimension of the lived through our own methodological procedure, called Set of Representational Methodological Instruments as a way to understand and operate the concept of representation in the analysis of everyday life. We conclude that the analysis of spatial practices through representations indicates, in fact, a fragmentary logic that juxtaposes or overlaps with previous logics and structures. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 18/12685-1 - Urbanization and production of cities in Bahia: fragmentary logic and spacial practices of the inhabit
• Grantee: Rízia Mendes Mares
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate