The Struggle for Land in the Eastern Amazon

• Author: Airton dos Reis Pereira
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X221106985
• Published date: 01 September 2022
• Date: 01 September 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X221106985

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 246, Vol. 49 No. 5, September 2022, 132–145

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X221106985

© 2022 Latin American Perspectives

132

The Struggle for Land in the Eastern Amazon

by

Airton dos Reis Pereira

Translated by

Heather Hayes

Beginning in the second half of the 1960s, the development model that Brazilian gov-

ernments envisioned for the Amazon was based on large landholdings and the massive

transfer of public resources to numerous large rural landowners and private national and

foreign companies based in the south-central regions of Brazil. Large tracts of land were

destined for the exploitation of natural resources (wood, minerals, etc.) but above all for

cattle raising. However, workers’ struggle for land, with the occupation of unproductive

properties and conflict but also solidarity, collective work, and mutual exchanges, pro-

duced initiatives that made possible another form of land tenure and use in the region, one

that was diversified and more sustainable.

A partir da segunda metade da década de 1960, o modelo de desenvolvimento, conce-

bido pelos governos do Brasil para a Amazônia, foi pautado na grande propriedade da terra

e na transferência massiva de recursos públicos a inúmeros grandes proprietários rurais e

empresas privadas nacionais e estrangeiras sediadas no Centro-Sul do Brasil. Grandes

extensões de terra foram destinadas não só à exploração dos recursos naturais (madeiras,

minérios etc.), mas sobretudo à criação de gado bovino. Mas a luta dos trabalhadores pela

terra por meio de suas experiências localizadas de ocupações de imóveis improdutivos,

contestação e embates, mas também de solidariedade entre si, de trabalhos coletivos e trocas

mútuas, puderam experimentar iniciativas que possibilitaram uma outra forma de posse

e de uso da terra na região: diversificada e mais sustentável.

Keywords: Amazon, Land, Squatters, Social organization

In discussing the struggle of rural workers for land in southern and south-

eastern Pará, in the eastern Amazon, I must begin with land concentration by

rural landowners and entrepreneurs, many of whom have come from the

south-central areas of the country with the political and financial support of the

state (Hébette, 2004; Martins, 1984; 1991). Increased migration of rural workers,

small-scale traders, and other individuals to this part of the Amazon (Schmink

and Wood, 1992; Pereira, 2015) began at the end of the 1960s, when the federal

government, which saw this territory as an empty space to be filled, began

building roads and advertising in the media to stimulate migration with the

promise of land, work, and easy money. Beginning in the second half of the

1970s, large landholdings established with definitive titles or leases1 began to

Airton dos Reis Pereira is a professor in the Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences at the

Universidade do Estado do Pará Campus VIII/Marabá and in its Graduate Program in Indigenous

School Education and in the Graduate Program in Territorial Dynamics and Society in the Amazon

of the Universidade Federal do Sul e Sudeste do Pará. Heather Hayes is a translator in Quito, Ecuador.

1106985LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X221106985Latin American PerspectivesPereira/STRUGGLE FOR LAND IN THE EASTERN AMAZON

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