A large amount of the diagnoses and proposals on the Brazilian semi-arid region have as a reference images that were historically built upon a problematic space, a land of drought and poverty. In the first half of the twentieth century, critical views emerged about the structural causes and consequences of regional poverty. Those critical perspectives gained importance in the 1980s, based on the idea of human coexistence with the semi-arid. Both the struggle against drought as well as coexistence with the semi-arid are associated with world visions that guide the knowledge and the practices of social agents, thus influencing the formulation and implementation of public policies in the semi-arid. This article analyzes the relationships between these two perspectives and the different development paradigms in the Brazilian semi-arid.
Brazilian semi-arid; development paradigms