The Agrarian São Paulo in the age of globalization

Abstract

The configuration of agriculture in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, can be characterized by factors articulated through the state's multi-territoriality. The major dimensions of life - the environment, economy, society, politics, culture and ideology - interact in overlapping ways that reveal correlations of power in the social relations that, establish territorial dominance in the state. Since its founding in colonial times, agrarian São Paulo has been configured by the interaction of these dimensions in different scales, something that continues into the contemporary period of the New Republic. In these past 30 years, there has been an intensification of the global role of São Paulo, which has gradually increased its participation in the international commodities market since the 19th century. Our concern will then be also significant social agents, the Brazilian agrarian and foreign businessmen, supported the system of agribusiness and the neoliberal policies as well as the peasantry forged in the struggle represented in Sem-terras, social agents to tensioning their ways of life, compete and negotiate the space and rural territorial development in the São Paulo and Brazil. Incorporate history linked to geography to include processes and dynamics in a cartographic analysis that considers the influence of qualitative human forces. The thesis also aims to contribute with a practical representation of how to use Geohistorical Critical Cartography tools to depict agrarian São Paulo and better understand the new challenges of the agrarian question at the beginning of the XXI century.