A cidade cartografada: o uso do espaço urbano e a cartografia social por estudantes do 9º ano do ensino fundamental ii em Porto Nacional/TO

Abstract

The city is formed by diverse uses, serving as an area for reproduction and everyday life, giving meaning to existence and to the construction of a spatial organization. It constitutes a space for building desires, expectations, and achievements, where, beyond the concrete and visible space, are embedded from a social, political, and economic relations, forming an urban space. In this sense, city and urban space are interconnected, meaning that to think about the city is to reflect upon the urban space—themes that are also inherent to the Geography curriculum in basic education From the lived experiences and uses of urban spaces, perceptions are formed with their own meanings which can be represented through a Social Cartography.Based on these premises, the general objective of this study was to analyze the cartographed city of Porto Nacional, Tocantins, from the perspective of middle school students from Dom Domingos Carrerot State school, in Tocantins. As the specific objectives sought to: identify the socioeconomic characteristics of 9th-grade students; map the urban spaces of the city through the Social Cartography; Understanding the relationship and meaning attributed by students to the urban spaces that they use to frequent; and compare the different ways of .urban spaces. The methodological approach consisted of a reviewed literature and a Social Cartography workshop, which included the administration of a socioeconomic questionnaire, the completion of a daily routine chart, mapping activities, and a focus group discussion The results demonstrate that the city cartographed by the students is not merely a collection of streets, buildings, and infrastructure, but rather a lived territory shaped by the social relations of everyday experiences. The collective construction of the maps enabled the exchange of experiences among students, fostering the production of meaningful knowledge connected to their reality. It was observed that the waterfront of the city, holds a central position among the most frequented spaces, standing out as an important area for life experiences and sociability. It was also found that most of the áreas used by the students are related to leisure activities, while their residences are scattered throughout the city. Regarding commuting, walking and driving by car are predominant. Thus, it is understood that mapping the city space, through the lens of Social Cartography, constitutes a form of representation and world-reading that values the lived experiences of individuals, positioning the student as a protagonist in the process of constructing geographical knowledge.