THE SOCIAL FIELD OF GEOGRAPHY IN BRAZIL ITS FORMATION AND SOCIAL REPRESENTATION

Abstract

This research aims at reflecting on the formation of the field of geography in Brazil and, precisely, at identifying the social representation of geographic science as shared by students of a public higher education institution located in Teresina/Piaui (Brazil). For this purpose, support was sought in the theory of Bourdieu (1979), particularly with regard to the concept of social fields, as well as in the Theory of Social Representations, as proposed by Moscovici (1978). Survey data were produced on the basis of a free word association test, the subsequent data analysis was then carried out according to the categorical content analysis based on Bardin (1986). In this perspective, the works of Jodelet (2001), Kaercher (2007), Pontuschka; Paganelli e Cacete (2009), Cavalcanti (2002), Morin (2005) and others were taken as theoretical reference. As a result, it was identified that the representations shared by the students about Geography reveal, for them, this science as the study of phenomena manifested on the terrestrial surface, and also as a science of synthesis. Hence these representations reveal strong repercussions of common sense and an attachment to the assumptions of traditional geography. Efforts to overcome the image that Geography was exclusively a science of synthesis are permeated by objective and also symbolic obstacles which, together, make it difficult to incorporate new ideas. One of these obstacles are the social representations shared by all the students questioned for this research.