The place of the frontier in the Geography of Pierre Monbeig

Author(s)

Carlo Eugenio Nogueira

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2013-12-16

Examining board members

Manoel Fernandes de Sousa Neto; Paulo Roberto de Albuquerque Bomfim; Ariovaldo Umbelino de Oliveira; Helion Póvoa Neto; Aldo Aloisio Dantas da Silva

• Advisor: Antonio Carlos Robert Moraes

Abstract

The aim of this work is to analyze the relation between the spatial expansion of Brazilian settlement occurred in the first half of the twentieth century and the process of territorial formation, with a focus on the role of the frontiers social relations in the construction of a geographic approach for the pioneering phenomena. Based upon the analysis of the pioneer fringe as it is expounded in the work of French geographer Pierre Monbeig between the 1930s and the 1950s, we intend to point out in what ways the descriptive explanation of the moving frontier, which impelled, for its turn, the foundation of cities, the deforestation and the formation of agriculture fields and pastures, reveals an interpretation about the construction of engineering systems planned to consolidate spatial relations among different places in the Brazilian territory, ensuring the territorial integration necessary for the expansion of capitalism in Brazil. Pierre Monbeig is a distinguish figure of the Brazilian geographic movement, fulfilling an important role in the institutionalization of the geographic scientific field as one of the greatest scholar figures that ever worked in this country. The analysis of the influence brought together with his activities as a teacher and researcher developed in the Department of Geography of the São Paulo University during the 1930s and the 1940s, which he helped to organize and establish, can be taken in consideration as a demonstration of the reach of his works for the generation of students that came after him in the University. Thus, this work seeks to examine the influence of the explicative frame held in Monbeigs studies of the pioneer fringe on the research developed by authors like Ary França, José Ribeiro de Araújo Filho, Renato da Silveira Mendes, Nice Lecocq Müller and Pasquale Petrone, all of them future teachers in the same Department of Geography in São Paulo. (AU)