IDENTITY CONSTITUTION AND MECHANISMS FOR (RE) PRODUCTION OF RIBEIRINHA SPACIALITY

Abstract

The article presents the constitution of identities inherent to riverside spatiality in the Sertão do Baixo Rio São Francisco (SBRSF), between the states of Alagoas and Sergipe. For this, the river is taken as a space of identity reference in which forms and relations of symbolic and material appropriations coexist that reverberate in the process of identity construction. We sought in Haesbaert (1997; 1999), Castells (2006), Hall (2006) and Cruz (2006; 2007) the necessary reading to understand identities as a dynamic and constantly under construction process. As instruments for the investigation, the development of field work, semi-structured interviews and observations associated with the landscape produced and experienced in the context of the riverside dwellers' speech was used. From this construction, based on Bassand (1990), five types of identity were learned, namely: i) the traditionalists; ii) potential migrants; iii) apathetic and resigned ones; iv) modernizers and v) regionalists. This classification shows the dynamics of the uses and appropriations of the riverside spatiality and the forms of relationship with the São Francisco River taken, for some, as a place and, for others, as a territory.