Educação e fronteira sul-mato-grossense (1889-1943): análise a partir da historiografia regional

Abstract

This work analyzes the representations of education and the Brazil-Paraguay border in the regional historiography of South-Mato Grosso. The purpose is to understand the social representations that integrated the civilizing processes in this region, and the implications of the representations on frontier education. The sources of analysis are the writings of dilettante historians and academics about the frontier region during the period from the late nineteenth century to the first half of the twentieth century. The frontier, located in the southern region of ancient Mato Grosso, is conceived as a region in process, permeable and with multiple interdependencies. Education is understood as a reality engendered by civilizing processes. From the Theory of Civilizing Processes, with emphasis on the concepts of figuration, interdependence, habitus and civilization, the analysis reveals that the social processes developed at the frontier have complementary and ambiguous characteristics, here the regional and national are interwoven. The regional figurations contributed to the establishment of representations and implied on the questions related to education. The constitution of the frontier and the process of setting up schools in the south of Mato Grosso comonn cahracteristis with what happened in national level. It is shown that the Brazil-Paraguay frontier in the south of Mato Grosso, in its singularity, needs more deepeing process of analysis, the frontier issues and its relation allows a more reality congruent analysis. The presence of the State on the BrazilParaguay frontier is anterior and perpasses the constitution of the civilization that developed there. The strategies of the individuals within their figurations constituted the frontier as a region and developed processes of identification and distinction.