Penetrating sertões: issues on the delimitation of the territory of droughts

Abstract

The Sertão was a continuous taming of frontiers that were built on the confronting of economical, social and geographical challenges; frontiers that are physical and cultural and that remained inaccurate along the nineteenth century, and even into the first decades of the twentieth century. Thus, this paper aims to establish a few introductory notes for the discussion of the historical process of construction of the geographical entity known as Sertão. To that end, we problematize some issues of the thick discursive weave, originated in diverse sources and disciplines (traveler reports, technical reports, jornalistic records, ethnographical research, etc.) that would shape such construction. Almost always linked to the droughts theme, the Sertão became one of the privileged arenas for national debate. To comprehend the instrumentalization of the confronting of the Sertão as a technical problem thus assumes the comprehension of how its limits, its characteristics, and its contents were delimited.