THE STUDY OF THE NATURE OF/IN THE CITY: SOME CONTRIBUTIONS OF ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY

The purpose of the present work is to discuss the urban environment problematic generated by capitalist modernity and the theoretical foundations of the case study that has been development in the city of Rio Grande (Brazil). For that we divide this article in three constitutive parts. In the first part, we introduce the problematic of nature of/in capitalist globalization, focusing in the contemporary socio-environmental reality. In the second, we deal with the emergency of the Environmental History to discuss the interdisciplinary character of this knowledge field above all its interface with the Geography and his investigative potentialities to the focus theme. Finally, in the third part, we argue about the importance of debate, investigation and to finding solutions for the urban environment problematic in the process of production of city with sustainable human development to the "other possible world" of the World Social Forums. In this way, in the nowadays neoliberal globalization, the city, as a destined space for capitalist system reproduction and its hegemony or like a way to overcome the current social-economic-environmental paradigm, is a strategic place.