No oeste, a terra e o céu
A expansão da fronteira agrícola no Brasil Central
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2835364 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jason B Kauffman (0000-0002-9020-2815, independent scholar, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 99 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 381-383 |
| Publication date | 2019-05-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Hispanic American Historical Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0018-2168 • E-ISSN: 1527-1900 |
| Publisher | Duke University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1215/00182168-7370533 |
| OpenAlex | W2942667767 |
| Language | PT |
| Citations received | 4 |
Over the last several decades, Brazil has emerged as a key player in global debates centered on the growth of commercial agriculture and its environmental consequences. In Brazil, cattle ranching and soybean production have exploded in previously isolated regions such as the Amazon and the cerrado. While the environmental impacts of these industries are well known, the histories of frontier expansion and territorial integration that facilitated their growth are still poorly understood. In this book, Sandro Dutra e Silva uses a case study of a microregion known as Mato Grosso de Goiás to examine the history of frontier expansion in central Brazil during the first half of the twentieth century. It is a significant contribution to an emerging literature on the history of state-led frontier expansion in twentieth-century Brazil.Dutra e Silva organizes his study around the concept of the frontier and its multiple meanings. While he engages with established historiographies focused on the role of bandeirantes in the social and political formation of Brazil, he also places his work in dialogue with North American pioneers in environmental history and the history of the American West. For example, he draws inspiration from Frederick Jackson Turner's frontier thesis and the precedent that it set for historical examinations of the relationship between people and their environments (p. 21). He also cites Roderick Nash's book Wilderness and the American Mind (1967) as an influence for his analysis of the symbolic creation of the Brazilian west. His overall goal is to understand both the material and symbolic processes by which the Brazilian government carried out its project of territorial expansion in Mato Grosso de Goiás.The book begins with an overview of the multiple waves of settlement that shaped the history of Goiás, beginning with the arrival of mineral prospectors in the eighteenth century, cattle ranchers in the nineteenth century, and railroads during the first decades of the twentieth century. By 1930, a network of roads and railroads linked Goiás to cities in Minas Gerais and São Paulo, and Goiânia and Anápolis emerged as regional administrative and economic hubs. These developments laid the groundwork for further colonization, land speculation, economic development, and the rapid deforestation of Mato Grosso de Goiás.Up to the twentieth century, the history of frontier expansion in Goiás shares many characteristics with other interior Brazilian regions, marked by poor infrastructure and a weak state presence. What made Goiás different, however, was the federal government's establishment of a national agricultural colony in 1942, a key component of President Getúlio Vargas's campaign of frontier expansion, colonization, and national integration known as the March to the West. The colony guaranteed investment and a lasting government presence in the region, along with a steady supply of government-affiliated scientists, social scientists, and even North American movie stars. Together they generated significant publicity and produced studies that created knowledge about the region and promoted colonization.Dutra e Silva's skillful analysis of these sources is perhaps the greatest strength of this book. For example, in a chapter on the deforestation of Mato Grosso de Goiás, he compares descriptions from nineteenth-century travelers with photographs and detailed geographical studies from the twentieth century to chart the dramatic transformation of the landscape by midcentury. In another chapter, he uses the writings of intellectuals and others aligned with the Estado Novo to analyze the discursive creation of the Brazilian west as a promised land ripe for colonization and development. According to Dutra e Silva, while an image of the interior—the sertão—as hostile and uncivilized was widespread in Brazilian society, the March to the West successfully promoted migration and colonization as a way to civilize the frontier, bring order to unruly natural landscapes, and reaffirm Brazilian identity.Cities became key outposts of civilization, and Dutra e Silva devotes the final section of the book to analyzing the ways that government administrators, public health officials, and missionaries sought to build rational, ordered cities that promoted a healthy citizenry and disciplined workers. Many colonists in the planned city of Ceres defined themselves against residents of Rialma, an unplanned neighboring city, which they regarded as disorderly, corrupt, and ruled by vice and crime. Whereas much of the rest of the book operates in the discursive realm of representations and symbols, privileging the experiences of those in positions of authority, the final section incorporates oral histories and gets much closer to capturing the experiences of colonists who migrated to the region and shaped its landscape through their labor.Overall, this book charts new ground in a growing field focused on frontier expansion, colonization, and development in twentieth-century Brazil. It joins important recent works such as Seth Garfield's In Search of the Amazon: Brazil, the United States, and the Nature of a Region (2013) and will be of broader interest to scholars focused on the environmental consequences of agricultural expansion in the vast interior regions of South America
Amazon rainforest · Archaeology · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Environmental history · Ethnology · Frontier · Geography · Political science · Politics · State (computer science) · Wilderness · Ecology · History · Law · Rural Development and Agriculture · Urban Development and Societal Issues
| Citations per year | 0.57 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2019 - 2024 (6) |
| Highly cited | No |