For a geo-history of road passenger transport: operating contexts on the western of Santa Catarina

Abstract

In the context of academic research, more specifically under geography and history, the western region of the state of Santa Catarina is commonly associated with the expanding contexts of internal migration in southern Brazil. This process of re-appropriation of the territory, usually called colonization, produced a new spatiality in the regional context, resulting in the emergence of villages, towns, cities and land paths - later highways. With this process underway, an economic activity has become fundamental to the mobility of the population: the transport of passengers by road. Given this scenario, the present work aims to understand the dynamic relationship between the spatial practices of colonization and passenger transportation in the west of Santa Catarina, more specifically considering the territorial delimitation originating from the municipality of Chapecó. The analysis will cover the itineraries and cities traveled, their economic agents and their associations and specificities of operation. Using geographical categories to construct a reflection of the past, as either Mauricio Abreu and his present then, or Milton Santos, based on the empiricization of time through techniques, the work is structured based on considerations regarding techniques of passenger transport in the proposed territorial cut. The analysis centers on a chronological interval between the 1940s and 1980s, during which time the region’s population increases, bus companies and regular services appear. The main sources include local historical collections, regional journals, documents from regulators and transport companies, as well as various iconographic collections. At the conclusion of this study, we came to the answer that the movement of people was initially shaped by the sale of land and migratory flows. In the current context, regular bus services are manifested, under other functions, but representing legacies of other times, materialized in the operations of this means of public transport.