Rural social classes, socio-territorial conflicts, and rural development in the regime of accumulation by dispossession: a comparative study in rural regions of Brazil, Argentina and Colombia

Abstract

The research "Rural social class, socio-territorial conflicts and rural development in the regime of accumulation by dispossession: comparative study in rural regions of Brazil, Argentina and Colombia", is to analyze life and peasant political organization under the current regime of accumulation and expansion of capitalism, referred to as accumulation by dispossession, characterized by an extractive model linked to natural resources. In South America, we particularly identified three ways in which they unfold: 1) production of commodities; 2) mining and energy projects; and, 3) property and tourism development. These include: the increased participation of financial and speculative capital, mainly transnational; deterritorialization peasant processes, with changes in land use and changes in the land price; and negative environmental impact, and therefore, the emergence of socio-territorial conflicts. Additionally, the public policies have acted as the main means of implementation and expansion of the current regime in local territories, promoting the imposition of the model and the conversion of rural communities to the economic/productive and symbolic assumptions of paradigm of "agrarian capitalism". The consequences of the expansion of commodities are mostly shown on the study regions of the current project, which are Ponta do Paranapanema (Brazil), the province of Córdoba (Argentina) and the Department of Caldas (Colombia), where there are production variables such as sugar cane, forestry, soybeans and gastric methane and multiple forms of concentration and land speculation. Countries and study regions have different degrees of development in the current extractive regime as well as the social and political weight comprising rural communities, and the trajectory of peasant political organization, constituting exemplary scenarios to identify general features ways as the particular elements of the current phase of capitalist accumulation. The research was done by theoretical approach historical-critical in a disciplinary perspective convergence between sociology, economics and geography, in order to give coherence and expand the range of view and analysis in this research. Develop research in the light of the basic principles that guide called triangulation methods of sociology and anthropology, which involves the use of multiple methods and varied whose association, has a strategic role in the construction of the object of research. For each of the mentioned research settings (Brazil, Argentina and Colombia), there is a specific scenario, which is representative of the dynamics and the political and economic systems. This helps to keep the dialogue between "local" and "global" as constituent dimensions, which transform themselves. As part of the specific activities that will be developed, the bibliographic and documentary revision for each country, should be carried out in addition to other primary information sources such as agricultural census, research reports and other sources that will record the historical processes of the agrarian structure configuration and the transformation of the agricultural production systems. The analysis referring to socio-economic processes that will be developed in the area will be held from the analysis of information collected through the use of cuali-quantitative procedures. Field observation and semi structured interviews with key informants selected from social leaders and local people will be made. These people will allow to changes in the social and production practices. Finally, the most relevant results will be published in international journals and will be presented in scientific meetings. (AU)