Os Bolivianos do lado de cá: além do limite, a produção de fronteiras na cidade de Corumbá-MS

Abstract

This research has as its theme to analyze the presence of Bolivians in the city of Corumbá-MS seeking to understand their participation in the production of geographies and borders in the city. It aims to understand the production of border situations, identifying the visible and invisible conflicts in the production of geographies in the city of Corumbá-MS, considering the participation of Bolivians. They enter the city and participate in the urban daily life, producing territorialities permeated by social approaches and conflicts, configuring disruption and the production of borders. It is a qualitative research with data collection, observation of the urban landscape, use of oral history techniques, observation and participatory research; bibliographic and documentary analyzes; recorded interviews, writings and dialogues recorded in “field notebook”. Regarding the analysis of the presence of Bolivians in Corumbá-MS, it is noted that for them the city is seen as a place of opportunities for segments of Bolivian society related to trade, fairs and service provision, which drives the immigration flow, day after day changing, conforming and facing the boundaries that are established. The presence of Bolivians is noted for the landscape designed in the neighborhoods they occupy, mainly on the western edge of the city, as well as for their presence in the use of Brazilian public services such as health, for example. This, in turn, is the most desired by immigrants who arrive and by those who are still on the other side. After almost three centuries of its existence, since it was founded as a village, Corumbá-MS still remains the place of opportunity for many Bolivian neighbors. They settle here, in Brazil, occupying, producing and printing a new geography, noticed, mainly in the neighborhoods on the western edge of the city that concentrate the largest number of their installed businesses and, consequently, the largest number of residents. The border situation and the social construction of the place that emerge from the coexistence between Bolivians and Brazilians in the city of Corumbá-MS points out that the border to be crossed daily is not that of the territorial limits between the two countries, but that which is established in the urban, reinforced by the socio-cultural differences of the two nationalities.