Banca de DEFESA: THAYSA FERNANDES TEIXEIRA

FROM RAILWAYS TO NORTHEAST ROAD PLAN: planning, cartography and Rio Grande do Norte territory’s road structuring (1881-1944).

Road plans, technical networks, historical cartography

Transport networks constitute indispensable elements for thinking about the urban territories development where they are implemented. In Brazil, these transport networks began to be introduced in the second half of the 19th century with the arrival of railways based on the modernity propellant narrative. Associated with the new transport technology arrival, the imperial government had to foster and manage the implementation of these networks. The attempt to fulfill this task was carried out by the National Road Plans creation, instruments developed either by political agents or by technical agents, most of them with the aim of directing these networks towards the goal of territory integration. Later, from the 1920s onwards, the same discourse about modernization served as a framework for defending the implementation of highways and this movement reinforced the value of the car over the train. This was reflected in the National Road Plans from 1926 onwards, with the publication of the first plan with an exclusively road transport model. Within the time frame established for this study, from 1838 to 1944, we found twenty-two Road Plans distributed among three transportation models: river, rail, and road. Among the twenty-two plans studied, one has a very relevant characteristic: the 1931 Northeast Road Plan, created by the Federal Inspectorate for Works Against Droughts (IFOCS). Unlike the others - dedicated to the national territory - this plan is aimed at a specific country’s region. In the Northeastern states, and more specifically in Rio Grande do Norte (RN), the construction of railroads and highways was largely linked to drought relief, serving as an emergency measure to help the populations affected by the climatic phenomenon. Considering these facts, the main objective of this work is therefore to analyze the context in which the 1931 Northeast Road Plan was drawn up, relating it to the proposals of the National Road Plans and the agents who promoted them through historical cartography. From this perspective, the aim of the research is to understand the factors conditioning behind the Northeast Road Plan preparation and its developments, to interpret the political role of the decree-laws and the technical role of those who produced the maps, and to point out the results of the roads introduction proposed by the plan in the process of territorial (re)configuration of the state of Rio Grande do Norte. The theoretical framework used to help develop this study is based on the ideas of Milton Santos in his general concepts of "networks" and Horacio Capel on "technical networks", necessary reading for understanding the National Road Plans as the guiding principles of these networks. To help interpret the documents, were used concepts linked to historical document analysis, cartographic analysis and historical cartography found in the works of Jacques Le Goff, Antônio Carlos Robert Moraes, Adielson Silva, Gabriel Leopoldino Paulo de Medeiros, among others. The main sources used in the research are: primary, the National Road Plans, maps and geographical charts developed during the same period as the plans, images belonging to the collection of the History of the City and Urbanism Study Group (HCURB), official government messages and reports, as well as periodicals of the time; secondary, the bibliographical review of the authors cited. In the end, the aim of this work is to contribute to the enrichment of the historiography of the state of Rio Grande do Norte and to generate subsidies for new research.