REFLEXÕES SOBRE DESENVOLVIMENTO E SOCIEDADE NO SEMIÁRIDO DO NORDESTE BRASILEIRO

The present work aims to reflect the course taken during the classes of the discipline Special Topics in Education, School and Society: Development, Nature and Society in the Brazilian Semiarid, making a synthesis of the itinerary covered in this discipline. This reflection runs through the ideas of development at first, differentiating it from mere economic growth. Following, comments are made on the development strategies adopted in the Brazilian semi-arid by governmental action, which throughout history have given greater importance to assistance and emergency measures, being enhanced with practices based on technical studies, but without closer approximation with practices and wishes of the local population. Finally, we consider new development paradigms, also known as endogenous development, which foresee the collective participation as primordial in the development of effective actions to promote the improvement of the quality of life of society as a whole. Under this new paradigm, underdevelopment in the semiarid northeast is not only seen as a matter of the region's physical peculiarities, specifically drought or low rainfall, but structural factors that restrict access to land, water and income, keeping domination and privileges in the hands of an oligarchic elite.