Produção do espaço urbano sob colonização dirigida: ação estatal e popular na configuração socioespacial de Zé Doca, Maranhão (1960-1980)

Abstract

This research analyzes the production of urban space in Zé Doca (MA) within the context of the Directed Colonization of Alto Turi, between the 1960s and 1980s, understanding it as a result of a state project of territorial planning linked to Brazilian developmentalist policy. Based on the theoretical framework of space production, especially in Henri Lefebvre, Milton Santos, and Ana Fani Carlos, articulated with notions of power in Pierre Bourdieu, Claude Raffestin, and Malcolm Ferdinand, the study investigates how the actions of the Superintendency for the Development of the Northeast (Sudene), the Northeast Colonization Company (Colone), and the 2nd Engineering and Construction Battalion (2nd BEC), structured an induced urban centrality, functional to the demands of agrarian colonization. Methodologically, the research adopts a qualitative approach, based on documentary and cartographic analysis and fieldwork, including interviews and reconstruction of urban morphology through georeferencing. The investigation demonstrates that the formation of Zé Doca did not result from spontaneous dynamics, but from a planned process, marked by the implementation of infrastructure, territorial control, and selective organization of urban and rural space. The results show that the urbanization of Zé Doca occurred in a hierarchical and unequal manner, structured by institutional mechanisms that organized access to land, credit, and urban services, producing a morphology of power. It is concluded that contemporary socio-spatial inequalities are deeply rooted in this historical process, revealing the persistence of structures produced by directed colonization and reaffirming the centrality of the State in the production of urban space