Rhetorics of walking in Santa Rita: narrating spaces in the Grande Sert？o Veredas national park

this article is based on a research developed during 1996/97 in the grande sert？o veredas national park / mg, focused on different groups involved in the process of implantation of the conservation unit. inspired by the analogy developed by michel de certeau between the act of speaking and the act of walking, i describe some of the routes in santa rita, an area of the national park, walking in the patrol, formal and programmed itinerary of the park guards. following this spatial practice and walking through a way articulated by crossed references - from guards, inhabitants, researcher - it was possible to register memories and narratives motivated by the paths. the option of taking these routes and movements as an analytical unit, seeking the style suggested by the 'rhetoric of walking', permitted the perception of different accounts from common steps, concerning both links between memory and territoriality and the connections between traditional context of the locality and new social/cultural contexts, in this case, the expansion of the agricultural frontier in the 1970s and the creation of the park in the 1980s.