Da terra ao clarão: sócio-espacialidade de Canudos a partir de Euclides da Cunha

Abstract

The thesis aims to build a socio-spatial perspective on the Canudos episode based on the production of engineer and writer Euclides da Cunha and extensive bibliography about the theme. The socio-spatial examination undertaken here understands Canudos as a rural workers movement in search for means to preserve and to reproduce their own ways of living, in which the production of space was a first-order element responsible for the formation, organization and reproduction of the Canudos group. In this sense, Euclide's writings are analyzed from two fronts, one in which is perceived a notion of space within his arguments, and other in which his worldview is contextualized in relation to both the Brazilian intellectual and scientific scene at the end of the 19th century. Added to that, this thesis seeks to understand the relationships between land and labor, especially its roles in the Brazilian socio-spatial formation process and how these two elements and its processes configured the social space of the Canudos community. Therefore, in addition to being a study on the Canudos socio-spatiality, this work is also an analysis of the writing of the episode's history — focusing on the treatment given to the village’s space — and a critical effort to analyze the production of space undertaken by the settlement inhabitants.