The meanings of “territory” in historical research: São Paulo’s hinterland

Resumen

Considering the territory to be the transforming of a space according to an specific logic – official, economic, military, or other – there are innumerous possibilities of comprehension of this process, creating different meanings to this word. The follo­wing article presents four them: the official definition of the borders; the local represen­tation of the administrative institutions; the routes that connect and question the defined limits; and the idea of an urban network. For every definition, we point out researchers and analyze particular works in which they under­take such conceptualization. This analysis is part of the considerations of our own ongoing research, in which we examine the activities that took place in the countryside of the colony, and the ways through which they configured the territory, specifically São Paulo’s hinter­land.