Reflexões metodológicas sobre a relação rural-urbano a partir da teoria e de evidências socioespaciais da RMBH

Abstract

The article discusses the relevance of the analyses on the distinction between urban and rural in the current time of the movement of capital in time and space. It departs from the questioning of Harvey, in The urban experience, about the suitability of the rural-urban dichotomy to express a basic form of contradiction of the capitalist mode of production. Such a dichotomy would be just a particular expression of the social division of labour. Methodological-theoretical arguments that gave support to these analyses are reviewed, as well as other arising from population analyses. We suggest that any controversy around the understanding of rural-urban relationship cause more harm than help in the analysis of concrete situations, particularly in urban/metropolitan territorial planning, in which the complexity of socially produced space requires the understanding of the totality previous to specific spatial cutouts. Empirical evidence comes from census data on population occupation in peri-urban areas of RMBH, in which formal rural-urban differentiation is diffuse. We argue that issues of occupation and division of labour may be more relevant than the simple separation between rural and urban.