Nos “confins da cidade”: subalternidade, espaço urbano e a República recente em São Luís-MA

Abstract

Study dedicated to understanding the processes of spatialization within the territory of the city of São Luís, capital of Maranhão. As a city in a historically peripheral country, São Luís has specific historical characteristics that help to understand its geography. Thus, historical processes that allow for the understanding of spatializing processes are considered here; more specifically, the occupation of areas of the city considered marginal if the first region of colonization and urban expansion is taken as central. The geo-historical resource was taken as the area of the city where the neighborhoods of Madre Deus, Goiabal, and Lira are located, which have as their historical mark the protagonism of the subaltern groups of the city of São Luís in the first years of the republican regime. The observation of these neighborhoods in the contemporary city was understood as a vestige, a roughness, according to the critical geography of Milton Santos, who understands that contemporary spatial configurations are lacking in historical study to obtain an understanding of a given geographical reality. According to Milton Santos, it is necessary to recover in the more or less visible marks of space the historical processes characteristic of a social organization.