Between promises, territorial disputes, and the foreseeable failure: an off-the-beaten-path analysis of large-scale nature exploitation projects in the 21st century abstract

Abstract

Brazilian politics is marked by competing territorial interests, which are disputed within an unequal correlation of forces. On one side, we have hegemonic politics, led by elites and their subordinates. On the other, there is the resistance of traditional peoples, a counter-hegemonic movement in defense of their territories, facing attacks for expropriation and exploitation. With an emphasis on two major biomes, the Cerrado and the Amazon, the objective of this work is to analyze key moments in national politics in a context where the former was subordinated for the sake of the latter. For comparative purposes, we present cases of direct attacks on territories which, although possessing distinct economic characteristics (agribusiness and energy), are activities operated under the same logic: the exploitation of nature. The investigation proposes a geographical approach to the different facets – socio-environmental, economic, and climatic impacts – of these activities, with an emphasis on the circumstances starting with Lula's first term (which began in 2003). Therefore, we discuss the main impacts on traditional territories and possible contributions from Non-Mainstream Geographies.