Olhares dos imigrantes: suas subjetividades, memórias, histórias, desafios de integração e perspectivas em Francisco Beltrão – PR (2009 - 2025)

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the migratory dynamics of African and Asian populations in Brazil, focusing empirically on the municipality of Francisco Beltrão, from the perspective of geographical science, covering the period from 2009 to 2025. It is grounded in the understanding of migration as a geographical, historical, cultural, symbolic, political, and complex phenomenon. The analysis is supported by the processes of (de)territorialization, (re)territorialization, and multiterritoriality, as proposed by Rogério Haesbaert (2004), encompassing symbolic, material/immaterial, psychological, and political dimensions of space, in dialogue primarily with authors such as Milton Santos (1996; 1997), Paul Claval (2001), Yi-Fu Tuan (1983), David Harvey (2005; 2010), Denis Cosgrove (2008), Ernst Georg Ravenstein (1880), Everett Lee (1966), and Douglas Massey et al. (1993), among others. Based on a combination of bibliographic and documentary review, interviews, field observations, and statistical data, the research focuses particularly on migrant workers employed in the halal sector of BRF in Francisco Beltrão, as well as in other segments of the local labor market, such as supermarkets, repair workshops, and small businesses. The study demonstrates how the labor insertion of these international migrants reveals trajectories marked by challenges, forced and/or intentional mobility, and struggles for survival, identity recognition, and cultural affirmation. At the same time, it highlights practices of resistance, solidarity, historical existential reconstruction, and spatial appropriation mediated by knowledge, religiosity, and processes of language learning and coexistence. Thus, this study examines the presence of new migratory flows in Francisco Beltrão and their contrasts with local identities. Drawing on the categories of territory in Santos (1996), place in Tuan (1983), landscape in Cosgrove (2008), and space as a social construction in Claval (2001) and Raffestin (1993), it analyzes the perspectives of international migrants in the city and reinforces their centrality as agents of territorial transformation. Finally, it underscores the urgency of public policies that ensure migrants’ rights, promote inclusion, and value cultural diversity as a constitutive element of local heritage.