land conflicts in Amazonia (original) (raw)
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A FOREST OF DISPUTES: STRUGGLES OVER SPACES, RESOURCES, AND SOCIAL IDENTITIES IN AMAZONIA By
2005
by Edviges Marta IorisTo community people in the Lower Tapajós River, for their strong history of resistance. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Notwithstanding the satisfaction of having completed this dissertation, it was not an easy task and was only possible thanks to several kind people who, in many ways, encouraged and supported me throughout this voyage. First of all, I would like to thank my parents who always have encouraged me to keep pursuing my studies. I only regret that my father was not able to see his daughter as a “doctor, ” as he passed away soon after I had finished the first draft of this dissertation. To my advisor, Dr. Marianne Schmink, I am afraid I might not have adequate words to express my immense gratitude for all the support and encouragement she provided during my Ph.D. program. Her intellectual brightness and generous attention were my main motivations that helped me carry out the studies and the research for this dissertation, as well as remain firmly focused on completi...
Estudos Avançados, 2005
This STUDY does a historical analysis on the Amazon land issue emphasizing both social and land ownership problems created during the military dictatorship transference of public land to private groups, concessions and favors, "grilagem" (irregular occupation of untitled lands), fraud, slave labor, crime etc., as well as new problems that surged during the decades that followed, and that remain unsolved. The study also tries to show the gravity of the Amazon agrarian issue and the land chaos that has been created ever since.
The Amazon Land War in the South of Par
Annals of The Association of American Geographers, 2007
The South of Pará, located in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, has become notorious for violent land struggle. Although land conflict has a long history in Brazil, and today impacts many parts of the country, violence is most severe and persistent here. The purpose of this article is to examine why. Specifically, we consider how a particular Amazonian place, the so-called South of Pará, has come to be known as Brazil's most dangerous badland. We begin by considering the predominant literature, which attributes land conflict to the frontier expansion process with intensified struggle emerging in the face of rising property values and demand for private property associated with capitalist development. From this discussion, we distill a concept of the frontier, based on notions of property rights evolution and locational rents. We then empirically test the persistence of place-based violence in the region, and assess the frontier movement through an analysis of transportation costs. Findings from the analyses indicate that the prevalent theorization of frontier violence in Amazônia does little to explain its persistent and pervasive nature in the South of Pará. To fill this gap in understanding, we develop an explanation based on the geographic conception of place, and we use contentious politics theory heuristically to elucidate the ways in which general processes interact with place-specific history to engender a landscape of violence. In so doing, we focus on environmental, cognitive, and relational mechanisms (and implicated structures), and attempt to deploy them in an explanatory framework that allows direct observation of the accumulating layers of the region's tragic history. We end by placing our discussion within a political ecological context, and consider the implications of the Amazon Land War for the environment.
The Amazon Land War in the South of Pará
Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 2007
The South of Pará, located in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, has become notorious for violent land struggle. Although land conflict has a long history in Brazil, and today impacts many parts of the country, violence is most severe and persistent here. The purpose of this article is to examine why. Specifically, we consider how a particular Amazonian place, the so-called South of Pará, has come to be known as Brazil's most dangerous badland. We begin by considering the predominant literature, which attributes land conflict to the frontier expansion process with intensified struggle emerging in the face of rising property values and demand for private property associated with capitalist development. From this discussion, we distill a concept of the frontier, based on notions of property rights evolution and locational rents. We then empirically test the persistence of place-based violence in the region, and assess the frontier movement through an analysis of transportation costs. Findings from the analyses indicate that the prevalent theorization of frontier violence in Amazônia does little to explain its persistent and pervasive nature in the South of Pará. To fill this gap in understanding, we develop an explanation based on the geographic conception of place, and we use contentious politics theory heuristically to elucidate the ways in which general processes interact with place-specific history to engender a landscape of violence. In so doing, we focus on environmental, cognitive, and relational mechanisms (and implicated structures), and attempt to deploy them in an explanatory framework that allows direct observation of the accumulating layers of the region's tragic history. We end by placing our discussion within a political ecological context, and consider the implications of the Amazon Land War for the environment.
Regional Dynamics of the Brazilian Amazon: between Modernization and Land Conflicts
2019
The Brazilian Amazon has undergone intense transformations resulting from geopolitical and ideological valuations in the service of productive-competitive integration of its territory in the national and international economy. State and capital affirm an appropriating rationality of nature projected in two vectors of occupation/ modernization: techno-industrial and techno-ecological. The undergone problem is inscribed in spatial injustice as counterpart of capitalist expansion regarding land conflicts. The methodology is based on the theoretical-conceptual division of social injustices versus ideology of capitalist modernization of the Amazonian territory. The empirical treatment of the collected datasets unveils land conflicts through information obtained by the Comissão Pastoral da Terra (cpt), the dataluta Project, and the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (ibge). Thus, theory and empirical practices are unified in a regional dynamic analysis of the Brazilian Amazon in the last 20 years. The study emphasizes that the territorial policies of the State and capitalist forces (multinationals, agribusiness, mining, and logging) promote deforestation, violent conflicts over land and water, slave labor, rural redevelopment, demographic depletion of the affected rural areas, and accelerated precarious urbanization. The expansion of land conflicts and spatial injustices in the Brazilian Amazon results from the modernization of the territory. Highlights: Research article that seeks to unveil a scenario of intense modernization of the Amazon territory, in the last 20 years, which has caused the expansion of spatial injustices translated into land and water conflicts. The analysis considers recent information from the cpt, the dataluta project, and the ibge.
Territorializing land conflict: Space, place, and contentious politics in the Brazilian Amazon
Geojournal, 2005
Brazil possesses a long history of violent struggle for land, and its most recent phase is occurring predominantly in the Amazon Basin. Consequently, this paper attempts to territorialize land conflict in the Brazilian Amazon, and in so doing, to illuminate the place-specific intersection of historic social, political, and economic circumstance that created a violent landscape in the so-called “South of Pará.” The paper’s premise is that such conflict can be best viewed as resulting from a dialectic between general social processes operating across spatial scales, which create necessary conditions for conflict, and place-specific historical circumstances that transform necessary into sufficient conditions. The paper presents a framework integrating the theory of contentious politics and literatures addressing violence associated with the Amazonian frontier and with resource scarcity (and abundance). The discussion and theoretical application deconstruct the environmental, cognitive, and relational mechanisms that created violence in the South of Pará, and set the stage for the Eldorado dos Carajás massacre in April of 1996.
Professional Geographer, 2002
The Brazilian government has promoted development in Amazonia for over forty years. Nevertheless, improvement of rural conditions has been limited. Although tropical deforestation has been the premier concern in discussions about Amazonia, this article focuses instead on the human dimensions of development and the apparent failings of social policy in the region. In so doing, the article argues that what we observe today represents the consequence of conflicting development strategies, brought about by shifting national priorities that were influenced, in part, by international pressures. The article makes this argument by first presenting an overview of development strategies pursued since the mid-twentieth century, followed by a description of shifting national priorities linked to pressures from the international community regarding indigenous rights and environmental concern. Finally, this article presents a GISbased case study focused on the state of Pará, demonstrating the spatial articulation of contradictory policies and showing the overlap and conflict between competing interests. These spaces of conflict are supported by actual accounts of disputes at the local level.
Professional Geographer, 2002
The Brazilian government has promoted development in Amazonia for over forty years. Nevertheless, improvement of rural conditions has been limited. Although tropical deforestation has been the premier concern in discussions about Amazonia, this article focuses instead on the human dimensions of development and the apparent failings of social policy in the region. In so doing, the article argues that what we observe today represents the consequence of conflicting development strategies, brought about by shifting national priorities that were influenced, in part, by international pressures. The article makes this argument by first presenting an overview of development strategies pursued since the mid-twentieth century, followed by a description of shifting national priorities linked to pressures from the international community regarding indigenous rights and environmental concern. Finally, this article presents a GISbased case study focused on the state of Pará, demonstrating the spatial articulation of contradictory policies and showing the overlap and conflict between competing interests. These spaces of conflict are supported by actual accounts of disputes at the local level.
The Political Economy of Land Conflict in the Eastern Brazilian Amazon
Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 2004
An important goal of regional development in the Brazilian Amazon was to enhance social welfare and alleviate dire poverty in other parts of the country by providing land to the poor. Nevertheless, both poverty and landlessness have persisted despite development policies that distributed billions of dollars on highway construction, loans, and outright subsidies. Inequitable land distribution has been held as a prime factor in land conflict across the country. Although episodes of conflict over land are common in Brazilian history, this paper focuses on agrarian issues that arose with the opening of the Amazon frontier in the 1970s. The paper presents a political economy approach that considers the role of hierarchical forces interacting across spatial scales, in creating conditions ripe for land conflict at the local level. The premise is that the Brazilian government, intending to bring about economic and social development, promoted contradictory strategies creating land scarcity. These strategies led to expansion of large ranching operations, creation of conservation units, and demarcation of indigenous reserves, which constrained the pool of land available for small farmer settlement. Empirical analysis employing regression and spatial statistics is used to test the proposed model, advancing previous efforts by applying spatial regression, incorporating improved indicators of conflict and explanatory variables generated by a Geographic Information System (GIS). The findings provide support for some elements of the argument, demonstrating statistically significant relationships between land conflict and land concentration, cattle ranching, and road construction. Finally, a case study analysis of a county in the heart of the land conflict zone is provided, illustrating the interaction of scalar forces, and the articulation of land conflict at the local level.
Populist and capitalist frontiers in the Amazon: diverging dynamics of agrarian and land-use change
2005
iii This work is dedicated to my parents Ana María y José Melitón iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work has captured most of my attention during the last three years, since the time I decided to initiate my fieldwork in the Brazilian Amazon. This has been a quite enriching experience, both in intellectual and human terms. Living in the eastern Amazon has allowed me to gain a broader regional perspective of Amazonia. It gave me the chance to expand my knowledge of the eastern Amazon by visiting places which I would have never imagined to be in before, and getting in touch with people who care a lot about the welfare of people and the natural resources in this region. I hope that the reflections I provide in this work may contribute to those who share these same concerns.