Contested Frontiers in Amazonia.

Abstract

Based on 15 years of research in Brazil, this book is an interdisciplinary documentation and analysis of the process of frontier change in one region of the Brazilian Amazon, the southern region of the state of Para. The authors' analysis was based on the idea that what they documented in the field - deforestation, settlement patterns, and the intensity of rural violence, for example - were the outcomes of the competition for resources among social groups capable of mobilizing varying degrees of power. The analysis of these contests illustrates how national and international factors often shaped events at the local level, thereby propelling the story of frontier expansion in different and unexpected directions. Part One focuses on Amazonia as a whole. The authors review the history of the region, and analyze the federal and state policies that set into motion the contemporary process of frontier expansion. In parts Two and Three, they present the results of their empirical work on the evolution of frontier communities in southern Para. Each local history develops the general themes put forth in the first section. The final chapter brings the text back to larger issues of understanding such frontier change, especially in light of the country's anthropological, sociological, and demographic shifts and collisions.