The concept of territory from the perspective of agrarian studies on traditional peoples and communities: Dialogues and reflections

Abstract

The paths taken by the concept of territory in the field of the history of geography are marked by social, political and theoretical-methodological influences that affected the ways of thinking about geography and the role played by territory in social dynamics. In this sense, authors such as Haesbaert (2019), Saquet (2020), Gottmann (2012), Claval (1999), Andrade (2004), among others, discuss in depth the paths taken by the concept of territory in geography, bringing elements that help us understand the approaches that the concept has obtained throughout the history of geography, which are influenced by more structural conjunctures,  such as the epistemological changes and transformations generated in the scope of social reality, as Claval (1999) points out. That said, the objective of the present research is to analyze the approaches to the concept of territory in research that discusses indigenous peoples and quilombola communities in selected texts. In the methodological scope, we highlight that the research is based on the content analysis, according to Bardin (2022), of works published in the annals of the International Symposium on Agrarian Geography (SINGA), between the years 2003 and 2019, totaling nine editions analyzed. In the field of research results, we identified the presence of different approaches to the concept of territory in the research, notably from multidimensional, relational and integrative conceptions of the concept of territory proposed by different geographers, such as Rogério Haesbaert, Claude Raffestin, Marcos Aurélio Saquet, Milton Santos, Ariovaldo Umbelino de Oliveira, Bernardo Mançano Fernandes, Joël Bonnemaison,  Maria Geralda de Almeida and Carlos Walter Porto-Gonçalves, among others. Finally, in the framework of the conclusions of the research, we detected that within the research framework adopted, there is a centrality of the concept of territory as an important element in the study of indigenous peoples and quilombola communities, a fact that, in a way, reflects the importance that the concept has been gaining in the field of agrarian studies.