The aim of this study was to analyze the processes that led to the invention of speleological practices and speleotourist phenomenon, and its international social production and its insertion in the Brazilian context. It is considered...
moreThe aim of this study was to analyze the processes that led to the invention of speleological practices and speleotourist phenomenon, and its international social production and its insertion in the Brazilian context. It is considered that the development of speleology as an activity of multiple meaning, technical, sporting, scientific, entertainment and contact with nature was crucial to the generation of movement and flows of people to areas where there are speleological sites. It is, as a starting point that is the appropriate basis for the market, to the deployment of tourism in caves. The theoretical and methodological approach multi-referential starts of the concepts of the phenomenology of the imagination of Bachelard and the contributions of geopoetic and of the humanistic and cultural geography, with contributions also from the environmental perception and topophilia (Tuan). It was intended to study the collective imaginary and the symbolic aspects of the relationship of human societies with the caves. It is also to verify the dynamics and determinants of the speleotourist process. The methodological procedures emphasized an analysis of visual narratives and the production of senses from the discursive practices of landscape perception relating to Brazilian caves, tourist visitation and environmental protection, highlighting a case study in the Ribeira Valley (SP). It was performed an extensive documentary analysis, using varied materials collected in libraries, bookstores and in some cases also in electronic media. The images were collected from websites on speleology or related areas, or in websites of authorities or personal blogs and fotologs. There was also a film analysis of 42 film productions. The photogeographical and sociocultural survey of the speleological practices and caving-tourism was produced during the field trips, conducted between 2000-2010 in several places in Brazil, with emphasis on the Upper Ribeira Valley, and also in other countries (Portugal, Cuba), generating a corpus with thousands of photos, plus others photos provided by collaborators. It was used, yet, varied methods of interview, such as recordings of oral and electronic interviews, through the questionnaire, with 21 cavers or speleologists, of which 18 propitiated data about representations of to be a speleologist. The questionnaires on the social representations of the cave were incorporated into the study, using material that was produced under the History of Speleology Section of the Brazilian Speleological Society (SBE), since 1998, involving 461 people. The participants involved are students of basic education or university level, contrasting with urban dwellers of São Paulo or nearby places of speleological sites, such as Iporanga (SP). The outcomes they demonstrated the influences of the imaginary poetic and of the symbolic content from the caves into the development from speleological activity and speleotourist. The karst landscape representations and speleological practices appeared with extreme wealth, both in the testimonials and documents of philosophical, religious, literary and film themes. It is essential to increase the educational processes for the formation of cavers and speleologists, the spread of the speleological practices and the dissemination of caving, approaching rationalities and subjectivities. This allows us to rethink our historical relationship with the underworld, the interactions of caving and tourism along de trajectory of contemporary society.
