Estudos urbanos e Semiologia

Resumen

The recent studies of the urban history of Rio de Janeiro have been marked by two main characteristics: they have concentrated on the period between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century (a very important period to the city and to the country, involved in an intense process of modernization) and have been analysed under a Marxist point of view (especially the theories of Engels, that, despite their importance to the comprehension of the whole modification of capitalist society, have a tendency to reduce the importance of space among the social forces). The aim of this article is to investigate other possibilities of working with space, looking for other theories that could provide a richer and more complex approach. So, after examining some general premisses of Semiology, this article focuses on some different positions - Greimas’ and Barthes’ - trying to check in which manner they could be useful to the urban historiography of Rio de Janeiro.