Erweuter Volkart de Oliveira
Master's degree in History Teaching from
the Professional Graduate Program in History – PROFHISTÓRIA at the Federal
University of Sergipe (UFS). Teacher in the Bahia State School System. Email:
erweuter@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
The
Itapuã neighborhood, on the outskirts of Salvador, Bahia, in Northeast Brazil,
carries a history of resistance and belonging that brings it closer to the
symbolic representation of the sertão (backlands). Located 30 km from the
historical center of the Bahian capital, it remained relatively isolated for
centuries, preserving its cultural and multiethnic traditions, marked by
African and indigenous influences. The transition from a fishing village to a
peripheral neighborhood reflects processes of unequal urbanization,
characteristic of large metropolitan centers. Itapuã's peripheral condition can
be compared, with due regard to its geographical and socio-historical specificities,
to the sertão described by Euclides da Cunha: a space of resistance and
cultural identity. Thus, similar to the sertanejos (inhabitants of the sertão)
in "Os Sertões" (Backlands), the residents of Itapuã face adversities
imposed by an exclusionary social system, maintaining bonds of solidarity and
their own forms of organization. While the coastal area is home to
higher-income residents, the region near the Abaeté Lagoon is configured as a
"contemporary quilombo," where Black and poor populations grapple
with socioeconomic challenges. The metaphor of the sertão (backlands) also
manifests itself in local poetics, which reinterprets the memory and identity
of the Itapuanenses (residents of Itapuanã) through literature and orality.
Linked to this perspective, the poetic writing of students from the Rotary
State School emerges as a tool to record and interpret the neighborhood, just
as sertanejo literature does with the territories of the northeastern interior.
Thus, the dialogue between the teaching of History and poetic writing enables
the construction of narratives that integrate collective memories and
historical knowledge, promoting sensitive and contextualized learning. This
approach is in line with the emphasis that the BNCC (Brazilian National Curriculum
Base) directs towards valuing practices that promote historical awareness –
through the plurality of languages and sources of knowledge. In summary, based
on this study, we propose to reflect on how the urban periphery can be a
contemporary "backlands," not only due to economic marginalization,
but also due to the richness of its cultural experiences and the power of its
narratives. Thus, this work proposes an interdisciplinary reading of history
teaching, considering poetic writing as a means of integrating peripheral
experiences with the historiographical debate on identity and memory in Brazil.
Keywords: History teaching; Itapuã; Sertanejo representations; Interdisciplinarity.
Reviewed by Current Scientific Journal
on
janeiro 07, 2026
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