For a geography of difference and dialogues: Brazilian geography for the twenty-first century

Introduction

What will be the futures of geographical thought? I consider this question from my situated position in Latin America, and specifically in Brazil, so I will risk discussing the perspectives of Brazilian geography for the twenty-first century. Considering a multiple, confused, unpredictable, and conflicting contemporaneity, the term ‘risking’ seems to me quite adequate. However, despite these uncertainties, in Brazil, a ‘common spectrum’ seems to be increasingly highlighted in many subfields. The incorporation of Eurocentric science has always required some form of adaptation and new creation, which has resulted in unique theoretical and methodological proposals in response to the specific geographical problems of the country. Born under French influence in the 1930s, Brazilian geography has become progressively more diverse and plural (Lobato Correa, 2010). Due to its current plurality, I do not presume that this ‘common spectrum’ encompasses the specificity of all subfields of the discipline. Rather, I prefer to suggest that it represents only one of the perspectives of Brazilian geography – specifically in the context of human geography and human-environment interactions. What then would these perspectives be? What examples might Brazilian geography offer to re-imagining the future of geographical thought and praxis?

My suggestion is that Brazilian geography for the twenty-first century is guided by a conception of the world that highlights differences as well as a theoretical–methodological attitude that favors dialogue and a mixture of approaches, theories, and methods. In this commentary, my aim is less to define these two tendencies but rather to suggest general characteristics (a common spectrum) that have mediated these propositions in the development of a Brazilian geographical perspective.

Geographies of difference and dialogue

Discussions of the ‘geography of difference’ came to prominence at the end of the twentieth century (Harvey, 1997), but here in Brazil, they acquired their own directions. In Brazilian geography, the highlighting of differences informs geographical perspectives that value the space of the ‘insider's point of view’. This means that representations of geographical processes tend to valorize local-scale interactions and relationships, including causal dynamics, sociabilities, subjectivities, and intentionalities, both in research about human-environment interactions as well as social, cultural, and economic relationships. From this perspective, people and groups are seen as autonomous beings that self-produce, both individually and socially, in a relationship of independence and dependence on the physical environment as well as historical and social contexts (Moreira, 2022). The researcher's subjectivity, choices, and representations are increasingly seen as inherent to geographical knowledge as ‘being-situated’ in space, with intentions consciously assumed by the researcher (Marandola, 2021). Consistent with decolonial perspectives, these intentions present a political commitment to progressive social and environmental changes, not only in analytical terms, but also in participatory practices (Haesbaert, 2022). Such research aims to advance political empowerment and environmental awareness by examining struggles against inequalities and prejudices in urban and rural areas, autonomous social practices, and their resistance and demands.

Faced with this complexity, Brazilian geographical research seeks to be theoretically and methodologically less unilateral and more multidimensional (Moreira, 2022). Systemic (Gomes and Vitte, 2020), dialectic-Marxist (Moreira, 2022), and hermeneutic-phenomenological (Marandola, 2020) approaches are generally open to dialogues with other conceptions of the world, philosophies, theories, and methods. Following Souza's (2021) suggestion, mediated by different intentions, power relations, and local geographies, geographical knowledge production should not separate the method of study (how?) from the object of study (what?) or the specific geographic situation (where?).

But how are these tendencies expressed in geographical research? In general terms, we can observe the emphasis on difference and dialogue in research on the valuation of usufruct rights and critiques of the standardized production of space guided by market forces. Two examples include research on (1) the ‘right to the city’ and (2) the spatiality of oppressed, marginalized, and persecuted social groups. The right to the city critiques the spatialities of urban production under capitalism vis-a-vis direct production based on local sociability and daily life (Rodrigues, 2022, Carlos, 2022). In this direction, Carlos (2022) proposes a ‘metageography’ that seeks to go beyond disciplinary specializations by revealing the contradictory ways in which inequalities arise in the social production of urban space as well as how struggles and claims erupt. However, for research on oppressed, marginalized, and persecuted social groups, there are still specific structural barriers. In addition to interdisciplinary and intradisciplinary challenges, sexist and racist institutional practices have promoted the unequal distribution of economic, political, and epistemological power in the production of scientific knowledge. Thus, even with the growth of geographical research in dialogue with philosophy, anthropology, history, and sociology, these inequalities reinforce barriers to geographical knowledge production (Araújo dos Anjos, 2022; Cesar and Silva, 2021). Nonetheless, Brazilian geographers have critically examined the spatiality, resistance, and territorial conflicts of Indigenous peoples, focusing on the illegal expansion of agriculture, livestock, and mining in demarcated territories as well as claims of their territorial identities by the ancestry and cosmology of different ethnic groups (Mizusaki and Souza, 2022).

In studies of environmental systems, valuing differences and dialogues is expressed by focusing on internal spatial dynamics at a local scale (streams, basins, mangroves, micro-basins, etc.), including the participation of social groups both in the interpretation of natural processes and in the planning, management, and study of environmental impacts. The rise of systemic analysis as a means of examining environmental problems has paved the way for a relational approach that problematizes cultural, economic, and political interactions as well as their repercussions on environmental systems, thus consolidating an environmental analysis associated with social justice and the participatory management of territory – including the use of GIS for spatial analysis (Suertegaray, 2022).

In a bibliometric analysis of 30 journals, Neves et al. (2021) observe a growth of integrative approaches as well as dialogue between approaches, theories, methods, and concepts in scholarship on human–environment interactions. According to their analysis, ‘landscape’ is the most commonly used concept in such research, serving as a link between systemic and dialectical approaches from a systemic-cultural perspective. Watersheds, preservation units, and municipalities are the most used units of analysis at a local scale – including census sectors, marginal areas of highways, neighborhoods, schools, urban areas, and squares (Neves et al., 2021). If past trends are any guide, future geographical scholarship on landscapes in Brazil will further develop our understanding of socio-environmental injustice, territorial-environmental tensions, social and ecological diversity, environmental vulnerabilities and risks, territorial-environmental management and planning, environmental perceptions, territorial symbolism, and urban environmental transformations.

Geographical futures and the ‘territories of hope’

Underlying these perspectives, a decolonial approach is increasingly present in the spatial imaginary of Brazilian geographical thought, raising awareness of the current crisis of settler-colonial power/knowledge that has dominated both nature and society. This is a conflicting historical movement, resulting in strong conservative and authoritarian reactions, and it is a challenge for Brazilian political geography to problematize the threats against democracy arising from populism and authoritarianism (Castro, 2021). Directed towards advancing social justice, geographical research has sought new ways of conceiving and studying spatial productions, accompanying and stimulating the emergence of new autonomous socio-spatial practices that claim the use of space and reinvent the relationships of nature and culture (Porto-Gonçalves, 2020). These practices are observed, researched, and encouraged in urban and rural areas, mainly by organized social groups, including organizations of neighborhood residents, riverside communities, quilombolas communities, and Indigenous communities as well as regional and national networks such as the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST) and the Movement of Homeless Urban Workers (MTST).

In Brazil, the country's colonial, slave-owning, land-owning, and aristocratic heritage resulted in very pronounced socio-spatial inequalities, which have historically generated resistance movements and land claims in rural areas. The MST has presented a new form of political organization and worldview based upon territorial resistance and environmental sustainability, or what Mançano Fernandes (2022) calls ‘territories of hope’. Arising from the occupation of ‘unproductive’ lands, these territories are constituted and dynamized by mobilizations, works on the land, relations of solidarity, and decentralized power relations. Common desires and aspirations represent links that are strengthened by material and symbolic work in the territory where they actively affirm their ways of life.

Finally, let us return to the question: what will be the futures of geographical thought? The challenges of the twenty-first century are multiple and therefore require a multidimensional approach as well as a political commitment to developing more effective solutions to pressing socio-environmental problems. Critical responses to Eurocentrism have directed a decolonial Brazilian geography towards its own paths of highlighting the differences, dialogues, and mixtures of geographical knowledges, which will, no doubt, be one of the primary contributions of Brazilian geography to the futures of geographical thought and praxis in the years to come.