Name: GABRIEL PEDRO ALVES LOPES
Type: MSc dissertation
Publication date: 24/02/2022
Advisor:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| CÁSSIO ARRUDA BOECHAT | Advisor * |
Examining board:
| Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| ANA CAROLINA GONÇALVES LEITE | Internal Examiner * |
| CARLOS TEIXEIRA DE CAMPOS JÚNIOR | Internal Alternate * |
| CÁSSIO ARRUDA BOECHAT | Advisor * |
| ERICK GABRIEL JONES KLUCK | External Examiner * |
| LUIZ ANTÔNIO ANDRADE EVANGELISTA | External Alternate * |
Summary: In this research, we approach the process of modernization of the so-called Vale da
Suruaca/ES, reproduced by the territorialization of state actions that moved the extension
and the territorialization of the capital-relationship, particularly in the second half of the 20th
century. Suruaca, located in the north of Espírito Santo, was one of the last frontiers of the
territorialization of capital in the Southeast of the country in the 1960s. In this sense, we
discussed the formative presuppositions of the area, observing the development of the passage
from slavery to free labor in this portion of the state, passing through the discussion about the
territorialization of quilombolas and indigenous people and the disputes and appropriation of
land and water in Suruaca, at the same time time in which we observe their relations with
local power. We verified that this whole process of imposition of relations and
autonomization of the categories of capital had, however, a violent history of imposition.
Therefore, we also return to understand the process of imposing the categories of capital, the
State itself and planning. So, we discuss how these unfolded in Espírito Santo from the
imposition of a state model of modernization headed in this particularity by Jones dos
Santos Neves. We also discussed how national modernization unfolded in the state and local
context. Through the analysis of DNOS initiatives and action plans such as the Anteprojeto
de Recuperação dos Vales Úmidos, PROVALES and PROVÁRZEAS, we understand how the
reality of Suruaca would be abruptly changed by the actions of regional planning of the
floodplains that would transform wetlands of common use on land intended for the production
of agricultural and livestock goods that can be traded. These state interventions allowed the
implementation, expansion and promotion of agro-industry and highly technified agriculture,
in addition to the free mobility of workers and the sale of rural lands to landowners of rice
cultivation and, later, also to subdivision for the transformation of these areas into urban
land. There was, therefore, the manipulation of water for the appropriation and
valorization of lands. Thus, even though the discursive objective of these actions was to
extend the agricultural area of the state, starting from the production of rice, we saw that
what was left in Suruaca was a large plantation of ox in lands condemned by actions of
rationalization, that were transformed through drainage works and systematization of the
soils of the floodplains and wetlands, resulting in contamination and desertification. All these
processes were mediated by the inflow of fictitious capital, so that the reproduction of capital
employed there only occurred through the inflow of public funds, arising from state credits,
including the subsidy of infrastructural works, production and commercialization. Therefore,
we understand that the territorialization of state actions in Suruaca generated an intense
transformation of the socio-environmental conditions of the floodplains and wetlands,
producing and leaving as a legacy a \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"nature in ruins\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\", together with a series of expropriation
and spoliation processes of the necessary elements to the means of production and
subsistence for local populations, leading towards an intense process of labor mobilization.
These processes led to the suppression and elimination of the possibility of reproduction of
populations that had a large part of their means of subsistence in relation to water and land.
Thus, we conclude that the floodplain of planning was constituted in a context of crisis of the
social reproduction of capital, from an intense and violent process of imposition of delayed
modernization and, at the same time, it is the territorialization of state actions itself that is
itself creator of new and intense crises of different scales and spheres from the point of view
of reproduction and capital accumulation, but also of reproduction of populations and
ecological problems resulting from the destructive capacity of the commodity production
system
