Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: ANDERSON AZEVEDO MESQUITA

GEOGRAPHY OF COMPLEXITY AND THE RISK SOCIETY: COVID-19 AND AS BRAZIL'S VULNERABILITIES

Pandemic; Covid-19; Geography of Complexity; Vulnerabilities; Geography of Risks; Clusters.

The Covid-19 pandemic was a major event that affected contemporary society. Worldwide, data from 2023 indicated more than 700 million cases and 7 million deaths. In Brazil, the pandemic exceeded 40 million cases and 700,000 deaths, with the country accounting for 10% of all deaths recorded worldwide. Considering the effects in Brazil, questions need to be answered: after all, how have regions with greater socio-economic dynamics and access to health facilities proved to be less resilient? What role do variables such as culture and political profile play in shaping the scenario? The hypothesis of this research indicates that in Brazil the effects of the pandemic were enhanced by political and ideological factors, materialized in the anti-science discourse, against control measures and social isolation, which were widely disseminated, affecting the behavior of the population, making them vulnerable. The aim is to analyse which conditions of the Brazilian reality were decisive in the construction of systemic vulnerabilities, which resulted in the catastrophic scenario of cases and deaths from Covid-19, subsidizing the elaboration of a model of regionalization of risks, considering the Brazilian states through the regional nuclei of complexity. Methodologically, bibliographic research was carried out in periodicals in order to survey the literature for the construction of the theoretical framework. A database with 76 variables was created using information from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), DATASUS and the Covid-19 portal, as well as electoral profile data provided by the Superior Electoral Court (TSE). The data was processed in the "Jamovi 2.4.5.0" software to check for normality via the Shapiro-Wilk test, at a significance level of 5%. Spearman's non-parametric correlation test was used to compare the indicators surveyed, and the correlation power between the variables was assessed using intensity coefficients. Subsequently, the variables with strong correlations were grouped and plotted in circular dendrograms, forming vulnerability clusters and regional complexity nuclei. The results indicated that there was a significant correlation between characteristics related to income profile, level of education, availability of health facilities and, primarily, with the political party profile mapped from the 2018 presidential elections. The results revealed a greater upward trend in incidence scores and deaths from Covid-19, as the proportion of the population with party identification linked to the right-wing or extreme right-wing political spectrum increases. According to the research hypothesis, this may be a reflection of the antiscience stance against measures to protect against and control the disease, which has been strongly incorporated into the country's political discourse. The complexity clusters indicated that the Northeastern states shared similar characteristics, demonstrating greater resilience, despite less favorable socioeconomic and health structure and access indicators, while the Southern and Midwestern states, with better indicators, showed greater vulnerability to both incidence and lethality from Covid-19. These results challenge the expectation that a more robust socioeconomic structure would lead to a better response to pandemic.