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Original Articles

Places of Agribusiness: Displacement, Replacement, and Misplacement in Mato Grosso, Brazil

(Lecturer in Environment and Society)
Pages 452-475 | Received 08 Apr 2016, Accepted 31 Aug 2016, Published online: 04 Nov 2019
 

Abstract

This article investigates the spatial logic and different moments of place‐making during the expansion of Mato Grosso's agribusiness frontier, in the southern section of the Brazilian Amazon. The analysis is informed by three conceptual concerns: the tensions between representation and experience, between humanist and class‐based explanations, and between the intensity of place‐making and place‐framing. Empirical results from a qualitative case study (carried out between 2013–2015, when agribusiness was the undisputed locomotive of the Brazilian economy) demonstrate that socio‐spatial changes in the last four decades evolved due to the complementary pressures and controversies of displacement (particularly in the 1970s–1980s) and replacement (in the 1990s–2000s), which eventually resulted in the widespread sense of misplacement due to accumulated inequalities and entrenched forms of socioeconomic exclusion. The principal conclusion found that the places dominated by agribusiness in Mato Grosso evolved around a totalizing spatial strategy that undermined alternative forms of production and livelihoods that do not fit in the export‐oriented agricultural model.

This article is part of the following collections:
The Wrigley-Fairchild Prize

This research was kindly supported by the Brazilian research council CAPES (through the Sciences without Borders programme, grant reference: PVE 055/2012). The author wishes to thank two anonymous referees for their detailed and constructive comments on previous versions of this paper, as well as colleagues and students at the Federal University of Mato Grosso (UFMT) and State University of Mato Grosso (UNEMAT). The author is particularly grateful to the farmers and residents of the study areas, policymakers, and private sector leaders, who generously contributed to the research with their time, knowledge, and support.

This research was kindly supported by the Brazilian research council CAPES (through the Sciences without Borders programme, grant reference: PVE 055/2012). The author wishes to thank two anonymous referees for their detailed and constructive comments on previous versions of this paper, as well as colleagues and students at the Federal University of Mato Grosso (UFMT) and State University of Mato Grosso (UNEMAT). The author is particularly grateful to the farmers and residents of the study areas, policymakers, and private sector leaders, who generously contributed to the research with their time, knowledge, and support.

Notes

This research was kindly supported by the Brazilian research council CAPES (through the Sciences without Borders programme, grant reference: PVE 055/2012). The author wishes to thank two anonymous referees for their detailed and constructive comments on previous versions of this paper, as well as colleagues and students at the Federal University of Mato Grosso (UFMT) and State University of Mato Grosso (UNEMAT). The author is particularly grateful to the farmers and residents of the study areas, policymakers, and private sector leaders, who generously contributed to the research with their time, knowledge, and support.

Additional information

Funding

Brazilian research council CAPES

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