O Centro Tradicional de Comércio em Alagoa Grande - PB: transformações econômicas e persistências comerciais.

Abstract

The Traditional Trade Center becomes our object of study in Alagoa Grande, a city located in the Brejo micro-region of the State of Paraíba and that currently has a commercial dynamic that includes a large number of establishments that commercialize products and provide services to the local population And other surrounding municipalities, from long periods. Thus, we consider that the Traditional Center of Commerce is the heart of the urban space due to its influence to the other spaces of the city. The objective of this research is to analyze the production process and reproduction of this space having as elements the economic transformations occurred and the commercial persistences present. For this, we used the transduction method proposed by Henri Lefebvre that leads the researcher to a dialectical analysis in the regressive-progressive methodology. With this, in a first moment the description of the visible one was made from the participant observation of the landscape and the inserted relations. After this stage, a return to the past was made in search of the origins of the study object, using bibliographies, as well as interviews with old merchants. And finally, we analyzed the data obtained in questionnaires, verifying the current economic situation of the municipality, in which we sought future possibilities according to the needs pointed out. Based on the dynamics of commercial activities and services, 12 (twelve) streets, with 251 (two hundred and fifty one) establishments, define the Traditional Center of Commerce in Alagoa Grande. Its genesis starts from the small commerce that grows from the production and commodification of cotton, derived from sugar cane and agave, that caused the arrival of the railway line attracting industries, big businesses and other sources of income and growth for the city. Finally, trade is supported by economic income based on public administration services, commerce itself and other sources of income, such as pensions and other benefits, after economic stagnation caused by the productive decay and closing of the last source of income: Usina Tanques. It also seeks to analyze the strengthening of commerce, reviving its past and cultural memory, commercializing and reproducing space in the vision of the tourist potential of the land of Jackson do Pandeiro.