Relations between land concentration and contemporary slavery in Brazil

some considerations on commodity production and the enslavement of workers in the countryside

Abstract

This text discusses and presents the relations between land concentration and contemporary slave labour in Brazil, bringing to the discussion some considerations on commodity production and the enslavement of workers in the countryside.To this end, as a methodological procedure, data from the Agricultural Censuses (1985–2017) of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) were used to analyze land concentration in the country. Additionally, data from the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) and the Observatory for the Eradication of Slave Labor and Human Trafficking were utilized to identify occurrences of contemporary slavery in the national territory. News articles from websites that report and disseminate information on rescues conducted by the inspection teams of the Ministry of Labor and Employment (MTE) were also consulted. As the spatial scope of analysis, we highlight six Brazilian states that most enslave workers: Pará, Mato Grosso, Minas Gerais, Goiás, Maranhão and Bahia., As a result of the discussion it became evident how the historical perpetuation of the unequal model of land use and appropriation reflects the capitalist production of/in space and outlines the forms of exploitation of labour carried out by capital in the agrarian space. This includes the incidence of labour relations similar to slavery, closely linked to the predatory way in which agribusiness  produces commodities.