Border ideology and quilombola living way in the Amazon of the Pará state

Abstract

In the spatial formation of Amazon, the divulgation of the arrival of a large project, legitimized through a plan, program or government policy, affects the spatial dynamics of the place where it intends to settle it. Based on this premise, we focus on how the construction of the North-South Railroad that goes from Açailândia (MA) to Barcarena (PA), launched by the federal government, from the Logistics Investment Program (PIL), impacts places of its route. Focusing on quilombola communities, we interpret the arrival of the railroad as a “border ideology” that threatens the living way in Africa’s and Laranjituba’s quilombos, whose territory covers an area in the cities of Abaetetuba and Moju. For that, interviews with residents of quilombola communities and a workshop to elaborate social cartography to represent the risks that the effectuation of the railroad brings to the place were conducted, in addition to a literature review about the topic. The article has three parts, beyond the introduction and conclusion. The first part presents an agromineral “border ideology” included in government plans and programs. In the second part, the quilombola communities' living way is exposed using social cartography to show the value of arrangement and spatial dynamics as expressions of their knowledge and practices and how this is threatened by the arrival of the railroad. In the third, we are concerned with showing how this ideology threatens the ways of life of quilombola communities in Africa and Laranjituba and puts pressure on the place to modify and broaden its relations with the world.