The concentration area was approved considering a social responsibility of the Program with a transformation of the northern region of the Paraná State. The mesoregion in which the program exerts its primary influence is formed by a population about 600 thousand inhabitants, which corresponds to 5% of the State population.
Although the earliest cities were formed in the mid-nineteenth century, in a trooperism context, the population density was only verified in the early twentieth century, accompanied by a disorderly proliferation of urban cores without the polarity of any of them. The result is that all municipalities in the region have a population of less than 50 thousand inhabitants, and none of them has a prominent position, from the urban point of view, in the Paraná State.
According to official data from the state government, the HDR-M is in general below the state average, the school attendance rate is lower than the state average, while infant mortality, especially in the southern part of the mesoregion, is higher than the state average. The region is economically dependent on agricultural activities and the regional industries are, in general, concentrated in segments with few capacity for value-added, and science, technology and innovation development.
For these reasons, the pioneer north of Paraná has been called a branch of Paraná's famine, and is almost always remembered as a region of insignificant social, political and economic space.
The program's historical vocation, for this reason, is deeply linked to its regional context. The themes that involve the research on Theories of Justice: Justice and Exclusion allow the development of projects that can collaborate with a deeper and integrated understanding of regional ills, and still contribute to the articulation of actions capable of interfering positively in their social dynamics.
This does not mean that the concentration area is strictly linked to the development of microanalyses. In fact, the social model that motivated the election of this area of concentration is repeated in many other parts of the country, especially in regions far from the great urban centers, or in their peripheries, in a way that the research themes promoted by the Theories of Justice: Justice and Exclusion transcend absolutely the mesoregional interest.
Finally, the themes of the concentration area, invariably focused on the issues of social inclusion, enable a link between research and action.
Thus, the program's concentration area has led to the development of interdisciplinary research in applied social sciences, but has also aroused interest in researchers of the human sciences, especially historians, educators, sociologists and philosophers, who have participated as external collaborators of the program's activities.
