Cartography of the invisible: the spatial representativeness of labor and gender relations in brasilian Geography

Author(s)

Isabela Magalhães Bordignon

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Geociências
• Defense date: 2024-04-03

Examining board members

Lindon Fonseca Matias; Fernanda Padovesi Fonseca; Danubia Caporusso Bargos

• Advisor: Lindon Fonseca Matias

Abstract

The second half of the twentieth century was quite important for Geography, Cartography and the relationship between these two sciences. Amidst a reorganization of the capitalist system, of technological and cultural revolutions, the Critical Geography emerged in the Brazilian context as a stream of theoretical-methodological renewal, which opposed Traditional Geography and the cartography practiced until then, which produced conventional maps under a neopositivist bias. In the effort to rethink the relationship between cartography and this renewed Geography, a Geographic Cartography is proposed, a cartography that is able to provide a representation of the geographic space (socially produced space) and committed to revealing social-spatial inequalities and transforming society. Also, as a reflection of the events in the final decades of the 20th century, especially the feminist movement of the 1960s/70s, gender discussions began within universities, mainly in social science research. In particular, linked to a new way of understanding space as multidimensional, complex and non-neutral, the discussions of gender inaugurated a new subfield in geographic studies, called Feminist Geography, gaining prominence in Brazil only in the early twenty-first century. Thus, it became possible to recognize the distinct way in which women experience and produce social space, marked by the capitalist reaffirmation of patriarchy. The aim was to analyze the spatial representativeness of labor and gender relations in the Brazilian context, understanding which epistemologies have provided support for the production of maps. The methodology adopted consisted of surveying and reviewing the literature, conducting informal interviews/conversations and fieldwork, which led to an analysis of how maps have been used by female and male geographers, what their potential is and what their limits are as an important tool for geographical science in identifying socio-spatial inequalities. This research has helped to identify the absence of women in scientific production on Geographical Cartography, as well as a gap in Brazilian epistemological production that discusses this theme from the perspective of the Gender, demonstrating the need for tensioning Cartography from the perspective of gender relations, in what is named as Geographical Cartography of Gender (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 21/05703-6 - Cartography of the invisible: the spatial representativeness of labor and gender relations in Brazilian geography
• Grantee: Isabela Magalhães Bordignon
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master