International Journal of Humanities and Social Science

ISSN 2220-8488 (Print), 2221-0989 (Online) 10.30845/ijhss

Analyses on the Sertão region from “Vidas Secas”.
Adriano Bittencourt Andrade, Anne Costa Bittencourt Andrade

Abstract
The present work entangles Literature and Geography as a way of interpreting the polysemic social space, exploring the possibility of taking a different look at the same object, by the multiplicity of sources. From this view, we aim to make a geographic-historical analysis of the Northeastern Sertão, taking as its starting point the novel “Vidas Secas”, by Graciliano Ramos, and to characterize the territorial dynamics of the Sertão in two moments: the beginning and the end of the 20th century, from the identification of the main public policies that affected the region throughout that period and its transformations/permanencies in that locality. That analysis revealed that unequal power relations in the Sertão link economic to political power and condition public policies aimed at mitigating the scourge of drought in the region, which lead us to conclude that, despite the recent modernization in Brazil, several socio-spatial relationships have remained largely unchanged.

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