Banca de DEFESA: ISABELA CAMARGO RIBEIRO FIDELIS DE MOURA MARQUES

INVENTIONS OF MACEIÓ small atlas of the social-urban imaginary of water

Urban cultural history; amphibious people; water imagery; Maceió

The small atlas of the social-urban imaginary of the waters of Maceió's inventions
presents an investigation of the aquatic subjectivity of the capital of Alagoas. A
Based mainly on literature, this dissertation explores its cultural history
urban area taking as a starting point the imagery of water, an expensive and
well known to scholars and intellectuals from Alagoas. From experience with
diverse streams and extensive wetlands and marshy areas, the city was formed
from the seaport of Jaraguá and the lagoon ports, which inserted it into the
region of canals and lagoons. The waters therefore formed the city, and the city became
formed them, making the people of this region an “amphibian people” (Octávio Brandão,
1999), half water, half land. The name of the city itself, Maceió, designates “what
covered the swamp.” And that's exactly what happened: the swamps were covered.
Several landfills and rectification of streams gave shape to Maçaió in fact: that
which was born from the covering of the water that springs from the earth and imposes itself on the souls of
maceioenses. These waters, in turn, cover the city with flying waters
who descend from the heavens and invade the city, destroying everything that man has built
to keep flowing. The presence of water in urban life in Maceio
imposes: tides, rains in winter that cause flooding and flooding of rivers and
streams, the intense humidity that makes everything moldy. This presence and the movement of
coverings of these waters then form a complex aquatic imaginary, urbannatural-urbanized, which is urban and natural at the same time, coexisting in
conflict. The men covering the water with earth to expand the city and sanitize it,
and the water covering the city with waterspouts in its enormous force. There is in
amphibious city, the presence of a strong urban nature, as well as urbanity
What forms there is, therefore, natural. We could say, then, that amphibiality
it would be the synthesis of this imaginary urban-natural-urbanized complex.