Igreja, educação e desenvolvimento regional no interior do Amazonas: ações paroquiais e educacionais para o surgimento do município de Itamarati-AM (1958-1983)

Abstract

The central objective of this research was to analyze the emergence and development of the municipality of Itamarati-AM based on the relationship between the parochial and educational actions of the Spiritan priests in the village of Santos Dumont. Our timeframe covered the period between 1958 and 1983. We used the historical method with documentary analysis as methodology. The central sources of the research were the tomb books (Livros de Tombo) of the São Benedito Parish, documents from the Spiritan Order, reports from the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil, and state and federal legislation. For interpretation, we resorted to Carlo Ginzburg’s evidential paradigm (paradigma indiciário). We utilized the analytical perspective of the history of education, public policies, and regional development in the state of Amazonas, seeking to bring the Amazonian context from the interior into academia, focusing on areas that are often not of interest to the numerical educational productivist logic—regions of forests, floodplains, and life guided by rivers—which are neglected, silenced, and homogenized with the reality of the capitals in much of academic research. Our analyses confirm that the relationship between the development, the educational actions, and the political emancipation of Itamarati-AM is a fundamental analytical paradigm for understanding the construction of territoriality in the interior of the Brazilian Amazon.