Mismatches between extended urbanization and everyday socioenvironmental conflicts in Santarém, Pará, Brazil

Abstract

This article discusses how Global North environmental concerns would be applicable to the contemporary Global South urbanization - a zone of overexploitation of natural resources and imposition of homogenizing spatial patterns. The brand-new Metropolitan Region of Santarém (MRS), located in the Brazilian Amazon, is taken as a case study to demonstrate that reeditions of power and social hierarchy result in institutional violence and creation of an extensive urban tissue, where original occupation and spatial structures linked to the production of commodities for export co-exist. MRS demands the understanding of Global North and South connections and also of city and rural linkages to allow the understanding of a new urban that encompasses it all.

HOUSING BEYOND THE METROPOLIS: Inhabiting Extractivism and Extensions in Urban Amazonia

“…In this context of extended mobilities driven by extractivist interventions, mining has induced the rapid emergence of urban centers—often referred to as ‘boom towns of the Amazon’ (Godfrey, 1990; 1992)—as large masses of mobile workers agglomerate near sites of extraction forming entire neighborhoods and cities in a short period of time (see Figure 1). Beyond the formation of towns, extensions have also co‐produced materialities in urban peripheries and rural areas through both large extractivist interventions and specific forms of inhabitation adopted by Amazonian majorities (Monte‐Mór, 2004; Cardoso et al ., 2020; Oliveira and Cardoso, 2021). Apart from the extended infrastructure generated by extractivism itself—roads, railroads, energy transmission lines, telecommunication towers—rural areas in the Amazon have historically been shaped by extensions of landless peasants, tap miners, rubber tappers, riverine and indigenous peoples, producing varied settlement types and ‘multi‐sited households’ (Padoch et al ., 2008) with different patterns of land use and occupation (Brondizio et al ., 1994).…”

trama dos povos da floresta

“…A produção da cidade se tornou um negócio muito lucrativo para os agentes que controlam a terra dentro e fora da cidade. As coalizões que articulam os empreendimentos rurais e o setor imobiliário são comuns, seja pela oferta da terra e pressão política para ampliação dos perímetros urbanos, seja pela formação de demanda para consumo de produtos de alto luxo (CARDOSO; VENTURA NETO, 2019; CARDOSO; CÂNDIDO; MELO, 2018;GOMES, 2020;MELO;.…”