Edmon Nimer; Maria Mônica Vieira Caetano O'Neill; Roberto Lobato Corrêa · 1988
Nimer, O’Neill and Corrêa set out the theoretical conception and proposed thematic programme of the Atlas Nacional do Brasil, then under development in three IBGE departments. They envisage a cartographic research resource open to multiple interpretations and treat Brazilian reality as a continuing social transformation involving production, class relations and spatial differentiation. Their framework links present and past, form and process, continuity and discontinuity, quality and quantity, repetition and differentiation, and description and interpretation, while stressing how cartographic scale changes represented patterns. The proposed atlas examines natural resources, spatial organization and environmental changes as interdependent systems. Resources are assessed through their social usefulness, adaptability and potential exhaustion; spatial organization and environmental impacts are related to social and economic processes. Mapping would emphasize changes after 1950, include a small set of baseline maps, use 1960 and 1970 as further reference points, and treat 1980–85 as the present. Familiar thematic headings organize the programme, with the authors’ interpretive framework guiding topic selection, treatment and sequence.
