Cartography of the invisible: the spatial representativeness of labor and gender relations in Brazilian geography

Abstract

The second half of the twentieth century was very important for Geography, Cartography and the relationship between the two sciences. In the midst of a reorganization of the capitalist system, of technological and cultural revolutions, Critical Geography emerged in the Brazilian context, as a current of theoretical and methodological renovation, which opposed Traditional Geography and also the cartography that was practiced until then, while producing conventional maps under a neopositivist approach. In the exercise of renewing the relationship between cartography and this renewed geography, a Geographic Cartography is proposed, a cartography that is able to propose a representation of the geographic space (socially produced space) and committed to the revelation of social-spatial inequalities and the transformation of society. Also as a reflection of the events in the final decades of the 20th century, especially with the "second wave" of the feminist movement, discussions on gender began within universities, especially in social science research. In particular, linked to a new way of understanding space as multidimensional, complex and non-neutral, the discussions of gender inaugurated a new subfield in geographic studies, called Feminist Geography, gaining prominence in Brazil only in the early twenty-first century. Thus, it was possible to recognize the distinct way in which women experience and produce the social space, marked by the capitalist reaffirmation of patriarchy. The present research aims to analyze the spatial representativeness of labor and gender relations in the Brazilian context, understanding which epistemologies have provided subsidies for the production of maps. The methodology to be applied consists of a survey and bibliographic review, interviews, identification of data sources, acquisition of data concerning labor in the Brazilian scenario, converging to the analysis of how maps have been used by geographers, what are their potentialities and limits as an important instrument for geographic science in the identification of socio-spatial inequalities and to assist in municipal planning and management, as well as in the formulation of public policies. (AU)