New frontiers of capital in the Brazilian cerrado: the dynamics and contradictions of the expansion of agrobusiness in the Central-West Region

Abstract

This paper aims to analyse the current movement of expansion and consolidation of the meatand-grains chain in the Cerrado of Brazil's Central-West Region, the centrality of which is essential to projects on the national scale. This frontier is being reinterpreted through concepts such as the system of objects and actions, which allows us to identify the complexity of the characteristics of the new territorialities proper to the present stage of capitalism. Such characteristics include the new division of labour, the current dynamics of the market, the present role of the State, the battle between hegemonic interests and previous forms of production, the encounters between different temporalities and spatialities, and a number of other social conflicts. An awareness of the existence of contradictions, brought about by the movement of separation and totalization, permits us to unveil and understand conflicts. Thus, the use of these different concepts permit the mapping and recognition of this new frontier as both a powerful project and a space of resistance for those who fight for life in a context ruled by a vertical and exclusionary order.