Migrantes: trajetórias espaciais dos sujeitos arraianos – 1989 a 2025

Abstract

This thesis investigates the migration phenomenon of social subjects from the municipality of Arraias, in southeastern Tocantins, during the period following the state's emancipation (1989-2025). Starting from the question "why do the people of Arraias always migrate?", the research proposes as its central thesis that mi-gration is a structural condition of Arraiano existence — not due to a biological destiny, but because the territory where they are born was historically constituted on the margins of the economic dynamism centers of Brazil's Central-West region (Goiânia, Brasília, and Palmas to the north), characterized by geographic isola-tion, structural poverty, income concentration, and a lack of specialized health services and higher education. The methodology combines action research, Bar-din's content analysis (2016), life letters from five migrants, a questionnaire ap-plied to 140 respondents, and an autoethnographic crossing of 639 kilometers by bicycle between Goiânia and Arraias. The results confirm that Arraiano migration is multifactorial, largely successful in terms of upward social mobility, but also contradictory, and that socio-affective networks are central. The thesis dialogues with Milton Santos, confirming his structural insights while adding subjective and affective layers.