L'Espace Politique (Apr 2017)

Agenda descolonial para os estudos fronteiriços no Brasil

  • Adriana Dorfman,
  • Arthur Luna Borba Colen França

DOI
https://doi.org/10.4000/espacepolitique.4200
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 31

Abstract

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In order to support the research of multiple territorialities in Brazilian borders, this paper proposes a review of Border Studies under the light of decolonial thinking. In the scale of the state, territory has been a source of unity and dominance employed to build state sovereignty. Modern State's capitalist project of occupying space, legitimated by national identity and materialized on the territory, structures the linear borders. Taking into account Africanism, Orientalism, Occidentalism and especially decolonial thinking, we explore situated knowledge of border regions in the South of Brazil, through fieldwork, to examine scale relations (the places in the world) and to describe political strategies and territorialities. Thus, we expect to contribute to the construction of a research agenda for geographers in which "coloniality of power'' and ''border thinking'', expressions dear to postcolonial studies, are more than cultural metaphors. Highlighting the different cultures and their geographies and exploring local meanings and uses of the Southern borders of Brazil, we propose a grid of decolonial uses of borderlands which includes border strategies for public services in marginal borders; instrumentalization of nationalist imaginaries, tactical uses of limits and, finally, citizenly management of the border.

Keywords