ITAPUÃ: A POETIC URBAN AND RURAL METAPHOR ON THE BANKS OF SALVADOR, BAHIA, NORTHEASTERN BRAZIL

The Itapuã neighborhood, on the outskirts of Salvador, Bahia, in Northeast Brazil, carries a history of resistance and belonging that brings it closer to the symbolic representation of the sertão (backlands). Located 30 km from the historical center of the Bahian capital, it remained relatively isolated for centuries, preserving its cultural and multiethnic traditions, marked by African and indigenous influences. The transition from a fishing village to a peripheral neighborhood reflects processes of unequal urbanization, characteristic of large metropolitan centers. Itapuã's peripheral condition can be compared, with due regard to its geographical and socio-historical specificities, to the sertão described by Euclides da Cunha: a space of resistance and cultural identity. Thus, similar to the sertanejos (inhabitants of the sertão) in "Os Sertões" (Backlands), the residents of Itapuã face adversities imposed by an exclusionary social system, maintaining bonds of solidarity and their own forms of organization. While the coastal area is home to higher-income residents, the region near the Abaeté Lagoon is configured as a "contemporary quilombo," where Black and poor populations grapple with socioeconomic challenges. The metaphor of the sertão (backlands) also manifests itself in local poetics, which reinterprets the memory and identity of the Itapuanenses (residents of Itapuanã) through literature and orality. Linked to this perspective, the poetic writing of students from the Rotary State School emerges as a tool to record and interpret the neighborhood, just as sertanejo literature does with the territories of the northeastern interior. Thus, the dialogue between the teaching of History and poetic writing enables the construction of narratives that integrate collective memories and historical knowledge, promoting sensitive and contextualized learning. This approach is in line with the emphasis that the BNCC (Brazilian National Curriculum Base) directs towards valuing practices that promote historical awareness – through the plurality of languages and sources of knowledge. In summary, based on this study, we propose to reflect on how the urban periphery can be a contemporary "backlands," not only due to economic marginalization, but also due to the richness of its cultural experiences and the power of its narratives. Thus, this work proposes an interdisciplinary reading of history teaching, considering poetic writing as a means of integrating peripheral experiences with the historiographical debate on identity and memory in Brazil.