The Backlands and the social relations of production in "A terra e o homem no Nordeste"

Abstract

Manuel Correia de Andrade (1922-2007) is one of the most important Brazilian geographers of the 20th century. His works are marked by the agrarian question as a central theme, together with social relations of production and social movements. With the publication in 1963 of his book “A terra e o homem no Nordeste”, Andrade marked the geographical debate on the agrarian question by analyzing the different landscapes of the Northeast in the sub-regions of Zona da Mata, Agreste, Sertão and Meio-Norte. It also set out to point out alternatives for a possible agrarian reform amid a political context and a renewal of national geographical thinking. In this way, this work sought to analyze his work, trying to understand the author's interpretations of the social relations of production and the space of the northeastern hinterland. To this end, we tried to carry out a categorical content analysis (Sampaio; Lycarião, 2021), covering excerpts from the work that made explicit the author's views on the backlands, as well as analyzing the social relations of production of the backland space. Through the results, it was possible to reaffirm the book's content as a work focused on relations of production and property, as well as understanding its construction of the hinterland, characterized as a space of extensive estates and predominantly non-capitalist relations of production. With this, Andrade reaffirms the importance of his book for understanding past regional dynamics as the result of colonial structures that generate contexts and processes that are still in force today.