O bairro rural como identidade territorial: a especificidade da abordagem do campesinato na geografia.

Abstract

This paper aims to discuss and to point the importance of the concept of “bairro rural” to Geography, especially to Agrarian Geography. Different from the common understanding of “bairro rural”, in which it is interpreted in an isolated manner, because the traditional understanding of peasants is also the one that involves a certain parcel of isolation, I propose the understanding of “bairro rural” as a territorial unit created from the territorial identity, and, what is fundamental here, reproducing itself inside capitalism. This territorial unit produced by peasant work gains a configuration which is totally different from the one in which the typically capitalist relations give territory a configuration, that is, where we have the capital territorialization. The territorial unit (“bairro rural”) is, in this manner, the result of territorial identity created from the peasants sociability. It is this relations’ web among the peasant families that gives the group its identity, and it materializes in the territory, giving it the peculiar dimension of “bairro rural”. So, this interpretation of “bairro rural” permits us including, understanding and enlightening the peasants place and their reproduction in this society.