Os donos da terra urbana no sertão: estudo da estrutura fundiária e da produção do espaço urbano nas terras da igreja católica em Pau dos Ferros/RN

Abstract

In short, the city of Pau dos Ferros presents an urban land structure full of meanings from the past, since the actions of the Catholic Church were decisive in shaping the city – from the donations of land to the parish to build the first chapel to the relationships between the agents that produce urban space, guiding city transformations during the 20th century. In the last twenty-two years, the municipality has received investments in educational services, causing processes of urban expansion with repercussions, notably in the central neighborhoods. When synthesizing the ideas of this study, it was noticed that the land assets of the Parish of Nossa Senhora da Conceição, today with approximately 696.96 hectares, were gradually transferred and sold in transactions between the parish, population and registry office with the transfer of full ownership or domain use for construction of residences, opening of roads, allocation of institutional areas and urban equipment. Thus, three agents were configured – Catholic Church, State and population – important for the emergence of the neighborhoods that currently form the city center. But, in what way did the constitution and control of the properties belonging to Nossa Senhora Imaculada Conceição shape and consolidate today the expansion, change and use of urban land in the city of Pau dos Ferros? It is assumed that the emphyteutical system adopted by the Catholic Church was consolidated as a guiding element in the logic of dividing urban land, and in the absence of current urban norms and legislation, it highlighted the role it could play in the physical occupation of the city. That said, it is understood that the specificities of ecclesiastical land heritage and the “urbanization pattern” configured by the subdivision of urban land delimit the object of study. The aim, therefore, is to understand the participation of a specific agent holding land production, the Catholic Church, in the process of structuring and materializing the production of contemporary urban space in Pau dos Ferros. Thus, the data sources used were diverse, such as official documents and records from the City Council, manuscripts and publications on the city's social and political memory, parish documents and literature on the subject, as well as understanding the particularities of the forms of expansion urban area on church lands through morphological/cartographic study. In parallel, categories of morphological analysis supported the understanding of the spatiality and conformation of urban space on the church's lands. In short, the thesis in its six chapters discusses the historical process of constituting the current scenario for understanding the specificities of the church's land heritage and for the construction of an urbanization model, configured by the urban division of parish lands between the years 2000 to 2022, as a way of understanding the built city and the contours in the process of expansion of this heritage and in other growth areas of Pau dos Ferros.