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Recent Settlement in Brazilian Amazonia: Labour

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RECENT SETTLEMENT IN BRAZILIAN AMAZONIA: LABOUR MOBILITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION Olga Maria Schild Becker Department of Geography and Environment London School of Economics and Political Science. Thesis submitted to the University of London for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy. 2001 UMI Number: U615228 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U615228 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 POLITICAL 2 To all migrants, but in particular: - to those who had the courage to emigrate pursuing a dream, like my great-grandfathers Albert Krause and Laurent Schild, and who devoted their work to building a new society overseas; - to those migrants that took on the citizenship of the new land, like my father, Willy Becker, and were not warmly received as true children; - to those millions of workers forced to migrate because they lost their illusions and, above all, because they have lost their previous means of production, losing their cultural references in the process; - to that unknown migrant that one day, in 1983 in A?ailandia city, in the Amazonia Maranhense, taught me that the bread that feeds the Pope, the President of the United States and the President of Brazil, the State Governor, the Congressmen and the City Representatives, the Mayor and all other authorities invested by the People, is kneaded and made by the hands of the labourer, who more often than not does not have enough money to buy his own bread. - And in particular to my mother, my best friend and the person who most gave stimulus to this thesis, who has recently migrated to Heaven. 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank all those who made this thesis possible with material, intellectual and affective help, both in Brazil and in England. Many persons assisted me in the process. Without overlooking the contribution of many others, I wish to give special thanks to the following: - The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) and the National Research Council (CNPq), for legal and material support; - Dr. Simon Duncan, Dr. Anthony Hall and Dr. Andy Pratt, my supervisors, for their orientation, availability and constructive criticism during the time of my PhD programme; - My family, for their emotional support; - My late father, whose example taught me never to give up; - Dr. Clemilda de Souza and Dr. Ramon Conde, for guiding me in the rediscovery of my truths; - All those who provided information on the context being studied. Special thanks to the People of the Forest’, in the persons of Chico Mendes, Osmarino Amancio, Raimundo Barros and Gomercindo Rodrigues, who showed me that the forest can be a source of life, if exploited in a sustainable way; - Ivete, for her devoted friendship and zeal in managing my finances in Brazil; and Josinaldo, for his never failing attention in the search of information requested; - Luis Carlos Ferreira for his aid in organizing empirical data; - Marcia Bulach, Evangelina de Oliveira and Wolney Cogoy de Menezes for introducing me to the computer area; - My colleagues and friends at IBGE for cheering me up; - Rosa Roldan, a friend from the Supporting Committee to the Peoples of the Forest, for her companionship; - Olga Buarque Friedrich, Ana Maria Kirshner and Luiza La Croix for reading and commenting on parts of this study; 4 - Pavlos, Mercia, Tim, Farida and David, for their unconditional friendship, ever present, despite constraints of time and physical distance; - Neighbours and friends of 49, Colebrooke Row, in London, (in particular Jo, Derek, Celina, Lilly, Ana, Teresa, Jose Luis and Hayami) for the friendship, joy and experience shared during my stay at that temporary home; - Brazilian friends at LSE (especially Ana Amelia and Lenita) who helped ease difficulties posed by a new environment and by homesickness; - Lecturers, officers and classmates of the Department of Geography of LSE, especially Judity and Penny, for their support; - Valerie King, Moyra Ashford, Gisele Abreu and Marcia Paredes for English language revision, so that my ideas could be better expressed; - Carolina Moutinho Duque de Pinho and Roberto Braga for their friendly help with the final layout of the thesis; - I would also like to thank the birds in my London garden, who, asking to be fed on their daily visits, kept me in touch with nature and the struggle for life. 5 ABSTRACT The context of this thesis is Brazilian Amazonia and the subject is the discussion of labour force mobility and immobility as well as environmental degradation following current occupation process of this natural resource frontier. The overall aim is to identify the forms and mechanisms of the capitalist occupation process which has taken place in Amazonia in the 1960-1990 period. I consider the issues of increasing labour force mobility and environmental degradation as a question of changes in the relationship between people-nature. These changes in Brazilian Amazonia relate to an expansion of the territorial limits of capital and are a consequence of the occupation process encouraged by the Brazilian State. The central research question of this thesis is why and how does a regional development policy for Brazilian Amazonia, designed with the aim of promoting the ‘occupation of the empty spaces of the frontier’, lead to a progressive expulsion of the previous inhabitants of those areas. In the same way, why did government programmes not ensure a settling of the new colonists (landless migrants) on the land in these frontier areas where, by definition, we would suppose there are huge expanses of land available. The argument is that the Brazilian State, taking it for granted that the Northern frontier areas should be occupied, promoted a sort of occupation in which the frontier was to be expanded following a pattern of ‘urbanised jungle’, where the urban space was the support of this process. According to this strategy, the circulation (mobility) of the labour force was seen to be more relevant than the settlement of small landless producers. In this way, migration (as a mechanism in producing the labour force) played a crucial role in creating a regional labour market in frontier areas. Moreover, this thesis will discuss the Extractive Reserve model presented by the so-called traditional inhabitants as a proposal for rainforest productive conservation and counter-mobility of the labour force in Brazilian Amazonia. The present study analyses specific spaces in the Amazonia: the Pre- Amazonia Maranhense (Eastern Amazonia), considered an earlier frontier area from the 1960s, and the Acre River Valley (Western Amazonia), that represents a newer frontier area from the 1970s and 1980s. 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract............................................................................................................................. 5 Contents ............................................................................................................................. 6 List of Tables.......................................................................................................................9 List of Figures.................................................................................................................. 12 Glossary of Portuguese Terms Used in the Text .............................................................13 List of Acronyms ............................................................................................................16 CHAPTER 1 OVERVIEW: METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS AND THE RECENT PROCESS OF OCCUPATION IN BRAZILIAN AMAZONIA.......................................................................................... 19 1.1. Introduction ...................................................................................................19 1.2. General methodological issues ....................................................................24 1.2.1. Hypothesis, objectives and approach .................................................24 1.2.2. Key concepts ....................................................................................28 1.3. Characteristics and objectives of the field research ......................................34 1.3.1. Instruments of research .................................................................... 35 1.3.2. Field research procedures ..................................................................38 1.3.3. Problems in the obtention of data ...............................................46 1.4. The current process of capitalist occupation in Amazonia: a simplified model .........................................................................................47 CHAPTER 2 MIGRATION, ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT.................... 55 2.1. Introduction ................................................................................................ 55 2.2. The migration-environment-development equation .................................... 56 2.3. On the meaning of migration ..................................................................67
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