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Indigenous politics is crucial for rethinking some of the most serious contemporary dilemmas, as in the case of pressing discussions of development, democracy and justice. Those debates are particularly poignant today given the mounting disruptive interventions committed in the name of economic growth and resource management. The article examines the political perspective of Indigenous peoples in their effort to resist aggression and reclaim back land and opportunities lost to development. The discussion is based on an investigation into how the Guarani-Kaiowa of South America have been able to maintain a socio-spatial identity, react to specific socio-spatial injustices and at the same time associate their struggle with the campaign of other subaltern groups. This concrete example is instrumental for demonstrating the application of political ontology as a tool for interrogating the impacts of Western modernity and the advance of agrarian capitalism. Results suggest that, on the one hand, it is important to account for the political ontology of Indigenous peoples beyond generic categorisations that end up perpetuating abstract descriptors divested of protagonism and initiative. On the other, the idiosyncrasies of each individual experience also share commonalities with other socio-economic trajectories and related processes of control and exploitation.

Frontiers of national development and agricultural expansion constitute spaces of intense interaction, disputes and contestation. The Brazilian economy continues to largely rely on the opening of agribusiness frontiers in the west of country and, similar to what happened in the past, this is a phenomenon shaped by acute racism and discrimination against the Indigenous population. This article is focused on the emblematic experienced by the Guarani-Kaiowa on the border between Brazil and Paraguay. Their unique socio-spatial trajectory is analysed, making use of empirical results and regular visits to Indigenous communities. To understand this highly variegated geographical terrain, a new spatial typology is introduced. One of the key findings of the research is the latent agency by the Guarani-Kaiowa, which emerges from attachments to places, heritages and socio-ecological practices that led to an ability to take the initiative to advance their cause whenever and however the opportunities arise.

The article seeks to discuss the political perspective of indigenous peoples in their effort to resist aggression and reclaim back land and opportunities lost to development. The very general and the highly specific condition of indigenous groups in today’s market-based globalization is directly connected with the growing interest of social scientists in the ontological turn, which entails critical interrogations of reductionist assumptions about ‘what exists’ and novel ways of questioning contested realities. The ontological turn is a re-evaluation of Western-centric conceptualisations of the world and an attempt to move beyond essentialist positions. The flourishing debate on political ontology informs an examination of the tragic socio-spatial experience of the Guarani-Kaiowa of South America, a relatively large indigenous people who had more than 99% of their land grabbed and struggle to resist genocidal pressures and systemic racism. The research investigated how the Guarani-Kaiowa mustered sufficient strength in recent decades to fight a battle that many considered hopeless. Empirical evidences demonstrate that the Guarani-Kaiowa, despite major challenges, have obtained some small, but significant political victories because of coordinated efforts to retain a social and spatial distinctiveness. Crucially, what has made the Guarani-Kaiowa unique is how perceived and charged social differences are mobilised according to the political goals of different groups (indigenous and non-indigenous) and in relation to a spatial setting that is simultaneously lost, desired and anticipated. If the socio-spatial characteristics of the Guarani-Kaiowa were regularly manipulated to render them invisible from a development perspective and to justify the appropriation of indigenous land and other illegal and racist practices by the national state and business sectors, at the same time their own singularisation was their best hope of resistance and the main force that allowed them to continue hoping for a better life and ethnic survival.

Ontological and identitary questions affecting indigenous peoples are discussed through an assessment of the socio-spatial trajectory of the Guarani-Kaiowa of South America, employing an analytical framework centred around land, labour and ethnicity. These enhanced politico-economic categories provide important entry points for understanding the violence and exploitation perpetrated against indigenous groups, as well as their capacity to reclaim ancestral territory lost to development. Evidence indicates that ethnicity is integral to class-based processes, given that the advance of capitalist relations both presumes and produces difference and subordination. The case study in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul demonstrates that the Guarani-Kaiowa became refugees in their own land due to ethnic differences, but at the same time their labour has underpinned the regional economy to a considerable extent through interrelated mechanisms of peasantification and proleterianisation. Trends of exploitation and alienation have intensified in recent decades due to racism and socio-spatial segregation, but the action/reaction of subordinate groups has also been reinforced through references to their ethnicity.

This article examines the main tendencies and perspectives of peasant family farming (PFF) in agricultural frontiers such as the Amazon. The ontological features of PFF are discussed, in particular the multiple associations with, and subsumption to, agribusiness. Due to national politico-economic pressures, the Amazon was reinvented half a century ago as a vibrant agricultural frontier that attracted a vast contingent of migrants due to coordinated government plans and, in more recent years, the cultivation of export-oriented crops. One very intriguing feature of this dynamic geography is that small family farming represents the Other of capitalist agriculture, but it functions as a hesitant form of alterity that both resists and fulfils agribusiness.

The agribusiness sector in Brazil includes a broad coalition between landowners, conservative politicians, banks, industries and transnational corporations and represents one of the most perverse political forces in the country. Because of the erosion of the industrial sector and the accumulation of policy mistakes, agribusiness has become a key macroeconomic player and increasingly responsible for commodity exports. In areas of agricultural frontier, as in the case of Southern Mato Grosso, it gives rise to even higher levels of speculation, dispossession of common land and wide-ranging brutality. Frontier-making creates favourable conditions for the arrival of unscrupulous individuals in search of rapid enrichment and prepared to accept spurious economic and political practices. One of the main indigenous groups in the region, the Kaiowa-Guarani, have a profoundly qualitative involvement with land, nature and life, beyond the reductionist treatment of land as commodity and agriculture as business. Their identity and social experience is directly influenced by the place where the family lived and where relatives were laid to rest. Their culture is marked by the utopic search for the imperishable and virtuous land, although their daily experience is now shaped by fear, aggression, racism and violation of the most basic human rights.

A produção de fronteiras sempre foi fundamental para a circulação e acumulação de capital. A perenidade da emergência de novas fronteiras não é apenas em razão da demanda por minerais, terras ou outros recursos, ou porque as fronteiras representam novas oportunidades de mercado, mas crucialmente porque a fronteira opera como compensação pela saturação das relações capitalistas existentes nas áreas centrais. Na fronteira, a sequência convencional de tempo e espaço é suspensa e reconfigurada, permitindo a descompressão de tensões e contradições. Consequentemente, as fronteiras espaciais funcionam como um espelho, onde as características mais básicas e explícitas do capitalismo estão vivamente expostas. Este artigo examina o significado e a imanência das fronteiras espaciais, considerando-os como um laboratório de agência histórica e geográfica. Isso implica em uma reflexão sobre a necessidade, a configuração e a contestação das fronteiras espaciais, prestando especial atenção à incorporação econômica e territorial da região Amazônica e às perspectivas de resistência política.

Frontier-making has always been fundamental for the circulation and accumulation of capital. The perennity of frontier-making is not only due to the demand for minerals, land or other resources, or because frontiers represent fresh market opportunities, but crucially because it operates as compensation for the saturation of the existing capitalist relations in core areas. At the frontier, the conventional sequence of time and space is suspended and reconfigured, allowing room for the decompression of tensions and contradictions. Consequently, spatial frontiers function as a mirror, where the most explicit features of capitalism are vividly exposed. This article examines the meaning and immanence of spatial frontiers, considering them as a laboratory of historical and geographical agency. It entails a reflection upon the necessity, the configuration and the contestation of spatial frontiers, paying particular attention to the economic and territorial incorporation of the Amazon region and the prospects of political resistance.

Within ecosocialist literature, there exists a significant lacuna on the subject of transformative agency, exactly those actors with the capacity and power to realise the ecosocialist vision. Our research explores this topic through (1) an analysis of three documents (the Belem Declaration; the Reseau Ecosocialist Manifesto; and Ecuador’s National Development Plan), which mirror ecosocialist goals and are actively followed by a group of people, and (2) a stakeholder power analysis of the actors involved in the controversial Belo Monte Dam project in Brazil. Five agents feature prominently in the discussion, two of which contrast with traditional red-green thought: social movements, indigenous groups, the affluent capitalist class, left-wing political parties and the state. Their specific capabilities and power resources determine the different roles they could assume in a transition from a capitalist to an ecosocialist situation. We also argue that the particular opportunity context within which their activities are taking place constitutes a key consideration in transformative agency.

This is a collective document signed by indigenous and peasant representatives, politicians, civil society members, students, artists, activists, researchers and academics. It was approved during the fifth workshop of the Agrocultures network, which took place in Oxford in January–February 2020, at a moment when the Amazon was facing increasing levels of destruction, aggression and nothing short of a genocide. In many ways, the Amazon is the most crucial contemporary experiment of environment and development, where irrational, anti-people, anti-nature and anti-intelligence measures are being adopted, regardless of the will and the needs of most of its population. Old and perverse mechanisms of conquest and colonisation have been revitalised in the name of economic growth and national integration. This has resulted in a trail of violence, stupidity and systemic abuses associated with new roads, dam construction, mining, timber extraction and, more than anything else, agribusiness. In more recent years, a new round of projects and market-friendly conservation initiatives under the hegemony of global financial capital is threatening even the small concessions secured through a difficult struggle since the 1980s, including the establishment of a few national parks and the recognition of some indigenous lands and peasant areas. The departure point of the workshop was the recognition of the inequalities produced by development-as-economic-growth and the associated asymmetry of gains and losses, as well as an appreciation of the creativity, inventiveness and courage of marginalised, subaltern groups. Despite their apparent poverty, these groups have a lot to offer and are ready to take on any challenge. These are the visible invisible, the voices of the silent majority and the oppressed minorities; they represent what is colourful, valuable and alive in the Amazon, the living proof that the region had a long, miserable past, has a turbulent present but, because of its people, can also nourish a much better future.

Over the past three decades, a series of global initiatives have promoted changes in water governance adopted by many countries and, in Brazil, resulted in the approval of the Water Resources National Policy Act (Law 9433/1997). Since the passing of this law, tangible progress has been made, but there is a lack of effective implementation, particularly in the Amazon Hydrographic Region. This chapter’s main objective is to evaluate water governance in this region and the identity and construction of the hydrosocial territory, specially in the Teles Pires River Basin (TPRB) in Mato Grosso State. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with members of the three River Basin Committees installed in the TPRB; meetings were observed and documents were analysed. The governance model is centralised by the government and water management is partially implemented. This governance, together with another four aspects, is the key factor that shapes the construction of the hydrosocial territory and defines its goal, type and identity, which are strongly related to the history of land use and the neoliberal economic model.

In light of the Peace Accord between the Colombian government and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) in 2016, the chapter scrutinises present-day dilemmas and obstacles to a sustainable settlement capable of addressing the long-term developmental inequities of Colombia. It is expected that as Colombia becomes more integrated in the globalised economy, the many parties involved in the conflict will increasingly realise that they have more to gain with peace than otherwise and that this will pave the way to a renewed effort towards peace. Yet despite its many promises, as of now, the peace negotiations have primarily served as a means of potentially boosting the economy and facilitating access to leading business groups and foreign investors to Colombian resources rather than as a transformative move towards much-needed political and economic inclusivity. In fact, disturbing continuities between the inequalities that deepened during the protracted civil war and elements of peace agreement have been increasingly noticeable since 2016.

The introductory chapter reviews the meaning and fundamental features of the advance of development, what is later detailed and exemplified in the other parts of the book. The chapter presents the rationale, the justification and the structure of the study and explains that its main purpose is to examine the contested nexus between development goals and environmental problems. Environment-development dilemmas are actually much broader and more complicated than suggested by simplistic narratives of progress and conservation. The main attention of the first chapter is on the socio-cultural construction of development frontiers as spaces of opportunity and likely rewards for those who persevere helps to maintain social inequalities. Interrogating the frontier is a formidable challenge for critical, left-wing thinking (primarily concentrated on justice and equality), considering that frontier making is by definition a generation and perpetuation of inequalities. Likewise, critical scholars need to develop the ability to work through the political, apparently chaotic process of landscape change and silent resistance through the interstices of the established, taken-for-granted foundations of the frontiers of environment and development.

The Amazon region is one of the most active frontiers of infrastructure expansion, resource extraction and socio-ecological exploitation in the world today. The Brazilian section of the region was dramatically inserted into the wider agenda of national development and global trade in the 1960s and, since then, negative socio-ecological impacts continue to increase, despite the introduction of comprehensive water and environmental legislation at the federal and state levels. An important process of politico-economic change is the construction of large-scale water projects, especially for hydroelectricity generation and river navigation (associated with export-oriented agribusiness). In that broad context, the chapter examines polices and strategies that encouraged resource grabbing and environmental injustices through an expanded political economy framework that integrates the politics of redistribution and recognition with the politics of resignification. Investments in water projects in the main eastern and southern tributaries of the Amazon River are discussed, particularly to assess the contradictory advance of modernity, the ramifications of corrupted practices and the narrow basis of a prevailing technocratic and reductionist rationality. Following such a trend of modernisation and socio-natural reductionism, several river basins have been again incorporated in the agenda of dam construction as critical elements of regional development and intensive water management.

The chapter enlarges the examination of the notion of ‘resource frontiers’ and examines how the construction of dams and other related water infrastructure, as it has been happening particularly on the Brazilian section of the Amazon, is time and again used to propel and celebrate a nation’s modernisation, but it also serves to reveal how modernity is always partial, fraught with gaps and contradictions. The politics of modern water management in the Brazilian Amazon is scrutinised from a cultural, political and economic perspective that aims to contribute to an understanding of the politics of distribution, recognition and resignification that play an important role in the evolution of water modernity in the region. The chapter proposes a periodisation of regional water management, divided into three moments of intense socioecological change and political and economic influences. In that regard, Cultural Political Economy (CPE) can facilitate the understanding of the impact of hegemonic pro-development ideologies and discourses, as well as to comprehend the complexity of the interface between economic and more than economic practices.

The chapter examines the main tendencies and perspectives of peasant family farming (PFF) in agricultural frontiers such as the Amazon. The ontological features of PFF are discussed, in particular, the multiple associations with, and subsumption to, agribusiness. It expands the discussion initiated in previous chapters to further discuss how, due to national politico-economic pressures, the Amazon was reinvented half a century ago as a vibrant agricultural frontier that attracted vast contingent of migrants due to coordinated government plans and, in more recent years, the cultivation of export-oriented crops. One very intriguing feature of this dynamic geography is that small family farming represents the ‘other’ of capitalist agriculture, but it functions as a hesitant form of alterity that both resists and fulfils rapidly expanding agribusiness. Furthermore, the intricate Amazon experience of approximation and distancing from agribusiness parallels with what has been happening with peasants all over the world. Small farmers maintain an ‘inconvenient’ and resilient autonomy that is not at all easy to erode; they exhibit an internal logic (beyond romanticism) and flexibility that is difficult for the reductionist operations of capitalism to incorporate. This interplay between survival, resistance and opportunities are even more intense in areas like the ones in the Amazon, where agrarian questions and the ability of peasants to respond to challenges are directly related to the range of inequalities and alliances that result from the specific circumstances of frontier making.

The chapter introduces the aims and content of the book, highlighting its focus on peripheral socio-economic areas and marginal regions where development, as traditionally defined, is still in the nascent stages. These peripheries constitute new frontiers for economic development and typically unveil a disconcerting combination of change and continuity, if not frustration. Frontiers contain the germ of renovation, the chance to begin something anew and avoid the failures experienced elsewhere. However, almost invariably, the result is a missed opportunity to enact a different trajectory, and the frontier becomes a spectre of what it could have been. Because socio-spatial frontiers emerge, primarily, to mitigate and ameliorate the troubles and insufficiencies that characterise the politico-economic centres from where people, capital and institutions originated, the central claim of the book is that frontiers are characterised by built-in obsolescence and fleeting hopes of renewal. This is the most essential paradox, among many others, of the genesis of frontiers: the frontier space is pregnant with opportunities and possibilities, but in most cases, it delivers only stillborn dreams and expectations.

The challenges related to the conservation of the Pantanal are analysed through a study of the Cuiaba River Basin, one of the most impacted areas in the Upper Paraguay River Basin and located in the Brazilian State of Mato Grosso. The research findings show a clear disconnection between official monitoring data and wider perceptions of processes of eco-hydrological change. In addition, it is found that putting environmental regulatory tools into practice is problematic because of the pregiven foundations of conservation strategies promoted by public agencies. The most significant result of the analysis is the uncertainty in relation to the responsibility for environmental problems, which has created a perverse chain of ‘otherness–noneness–nothingness’. This serves to conceal the underlying causes of environmental degradation in the Cuiaba basin and limit possibilities for resolution. The main conclusion is that, beyond narrow development and conservation debates, it is necessary to account for a range of highly politicised issues at the intersection between interpersonal relations and socio-economic pressures.

This is the main conceptual chapter, which examines frontier making as historically crucial for the circulation and accumulation of capital. The relevance of frontier making is not only due to the demand for minerals, land or other resources, or because frontiers represent fresh market opportunities, but crucially because it operates as compensation for the saturation of the existing capitalist relations in core areas. The dynamics of frontier making can be summarised as the ‘law of scarcity–abundance’ (LSA), which recognises that human-made scarcities in areas of relatively advanced capitalism require, and prompt, the formation of new economic frontiers where there is perceived abundance of valued assets. LSA is a meta-theoretical synthesis of the gathering of problems in core, ‘established’ areas in association with promises of solution in frontier places. The State of Mato Grosso, in the southern tracts of the Amazon, has been at the forefront of frontier making for many centuries, accelerated in the last 30 years with the spiralling growth of agribusiness. Mato Grosso paradoxically reached the macroeconomic centre, but in practice remains a frontier where abundances and scarcities rapidly follow each other.

The intricacies of one of the most relevant agribusiness frontiers in the world today—the north of the State of Mato Grosso, in the southern section of the Amazon, Brazil—are considered through a critical examination of place making. Vast areas of Amazon rainforest and Savannah vegetation were converted there, since the 1970s, into places of intensive soybean farming, basically to fulfil exogenous demands for land and agriculture production. That goes beyond the configuration of new places at the agricultural frontier, and starts with a qualitative intellectual jump: from place making on the frontier to place making as an ontological frontier in itself. It means that, instead of merely studying the frontier as a constellation of interconnected places, we examine the politicised genesis of the emerging places and their trajectory under fierce socioecological disputes. The consideration of almost five decades of intense historic-geographical change reveals an intriguing dialectics of displacement (of previous socioecological systems, particularly affecting squatters and indigenous groups, in order to create opportunities for migrants and companies), replacement (of the majority of disadvantaged farmers and poor migrants, leading to land concentration, widespread financialisation and the decisive influence of transnational corporations) and misplacement (which is the synthesis of displacement and replacement, demonstrated by mounting risks and a pervasive sentiment of maelstrom). Overall, there was nothing inevitable in the process of rural and regional development at the frontier, but the problems, conflicts and injustices that characterise its turbulent geographical trajectory were all more or less visible from the outset.

Informed by the theoretical and empirical considerations discussed earlier in the book, the final chapter revisits the claim that frontier making has always been fundamental for the circulation and accumulation of capital. The centrality of frontiers is not only due to the demand for minerals, land or other resources, or because frontiers represent fresh market opportunities, but also crucially because it operates as compensation for the saturation of the existing capitalist relations in core areas. At the frontier, the conventional sequence of time and space is suspended and reconfigured, allowing room for the decompression of tensions and contradictions. Consequently, spatial frontiers function as a mirror, where the most bare and explicit features of capitalism are vividly exposed. The final pages examine the meaning and immanence of spatial frontiers, considering them as a laboratory of the historical and geographical agency. It is an invitation for further work and a critical reflection upon the necessity, the configuration and the contestation of spatial frontiers, paying particular attention to the economic and territorial incorporation of the Amazon region and the prospects of political resistance.

The chapter examines the survival strategies and political reactions of indigenous groups in areas of agricultural frontiers that are informed by cultural symbols, family bonds and land-based responses. It discusses the unique socio-spatial trajectory of indigenous peoples and, in addition, proposes a typology of indigenous spaces. The analysis is focused on the emblematic example of how frontier making was experienced by the Kaiowa-Guarani of South America. The wisdom and resistance of Kaiowa-Guarani groups derive from the simultaneous ethnicisation of space and spatialisation of culture. They have shown latent geographical agency shaped by religious practices, strong family ties and the ability to internally negotiate the return to their original areas. There are many lessons to be learned, in particular, the talent to absorb the increasing and dissimulated brutality of frontier making and, at the same time, voice their political demands, form solid strategic alliances and coordinate land recovery initiatives.

The spatiality of frontier-making goes beyond the more immediate relocation from ‘core’ to ‘periphery’, entailing a deep relational interaction between old and new areas. The article discusses the interdependence between centre and frontier and suggests that this happens through the ‘law of scarcity-abundance’. This ‘law’ synthesizes the general tendency to deal with mounting scarcity in central areas through the pledge of abundance at the frontier, although in practice new rounds of scarcity emerge in both areas due to the internal dynamics of capitalism (notably, the exploitation of society and the rest of nature). This means that the evolution of capitalist relations of production and reproduction is also, and fundamentally, based on accumulation through frontier-making. This conceptual framework is then applied to Brazil, a country largely shaped by territorial conquest and the expansion of internal economic frontiers. The State of Mato Grosso, in the southern tract of the Amazon, has been at the forefront of frontier-making for many centuries, recently accelerated by the spiralling growth of neoliberalized agribusiness. Mato Grosso may have now reached the centre of the national political and economic landscape because of the crucial importance of agribusiness exports, nonetheless it remains a frontier space where abundance and scarcity continue to jointly materialize. Frontier-making never ended in Mato Grosso, but remains a persistent necessity, much more than a simple contingency.

From being a net food importer in recent decades, Brazil is now considered a successful case of agricultural production and export. However, this image of triumph and efficiency helps to conceal growing socio-ecological impacts and mounting uneasiness. The complex and contradictory landscape of contemporary Brazilian agribusiness represent a relevant example of the advance of agro-neoliberalism, which is both an economic and technological process of agriculture modernization and intensification, in accordance to liberalizing pressures, and also a politico-ecological phenomenon centred on market-based solutions to old and new production, innovation and justification questions. Based on qualitative research and three fieldwork campaigns, the article discusses recent politico-economic adjustments particularly in the State of Mato Grosso, in the Centre-West region, which is fast becoming the main area of agribusiness activity in the country. Empirical results demonstrate that agro-neoliberalism has been promoted through inventive public-private associations not for the purpose of domestic food security, but primarily for capital accumulation and to support sectoral interests and macro-economic strategies.

Some scholars promote water governance as a normative concept to improve water resources management globally, while others conceive of it as an analytical term to describe the processes, systems and institutions around the management of water resources and water supply. Critics often highlight how specific water governance scenarios fail to deliver socially desirable outcomes, such as social justice or environmental sustainability. While water governance is often perceived as a technical matter, its conceptual and practical components are in fact based on multiple values that, nonetheless, often remain implicit. The present paper seeks to uncover this value base and discusses existing research on values from multiple perspectives, using material from economics, philosophy, psychology, and other social sciences. In different disciplines, values can be understood as fundamental guiding principles, governance-related values or as values assigned to water resources. Together, they shape complex relationships with water governance, which from an analytical perspective is understood as a combination of policy, politics, and polity. Introducing a new conceptual framework, this study seeks to provide a theoretical foundation for empirical research on water governance processes and conflicts

As a result of societal transformations, political governance shifts, and advances in ICT, online information has become a crucial dimension in efforts by public authorities to make citizens better stewards of the environment. Yet their environmental information provision often lacks focus and knowledge of end users’ rationales, behaviours and appreciations. Our case study was dynamic river level information provided by an environmental regulator – updated once a day or more, and collected by a sensor network of 333 gauging stations along 232 Scottish rivers. We examined if profiling of web page user groups (phase 1 of this study) and the subsequent associated employment of a specially designed Natural Language Generation (NLG) system (phase 2), could be steps towards more effective (tailored) online information provision. We employed an online survey (ran over 222 days, n=1264), interviews (n=32), workshops (n=15), as well as a small-scale yet advanced online experiment to evaluate (additional) information provision through NLG (including pre- and post-experiment surveys, ‘like’ buttons, feedback boxes and the monitoring of website visit behaviour through mouse clicks and time spent on \ud2 \ud \udsections). In phase 1, we identified and described profiles for the three main user groups: ‘fishing’, ‘flood risk related’, and ‘kayaking’. The clear delineation and existence of welldistinguishable rationales was in itself an argument for profiling; the same river level information was used in entirely different ways by the three groups. Still, in terms of provided information categories through Natural Language Generation (phase 2), the category of ‘temporal trend’ came out as most important. The experiment also showed that, besides visual information, textual information can (still) be of much value; the additional textual layer of interpretation plays an important role in translating complex technical information to straightforward messages for the specific purposes of the user groups. A key recommendation is that tailoring of environmental information merits more attention as it can aid more effective, and potentially more inclusive, information provision and communication.

The article examines the survival strategies and political reactions of indigenous groups in areas of agricultural frontiers that are strongly influenced by cultural symbols, family bonds and land-based responses. It is discussed the unique socio-spatial trajectory of indigenous peoples and, in addition, a typology of the indigenous space is proposed. The analysis is focused on the emblematic example of how frontier making was experienced by the Guarani-Kaiowa of South America. The wisdom and resistance of Guarani-Kaiowa groups derive from the simultaneous ethnicisation of space and spatialisation of culture. They have shown latent geographical agency shaped by religious practices, strong family ties and the ability to internally negotiate the return to their original areas. There are many lessons to be learned, in particular the talent to absorb the increasing and dissimulated brutality of frontier making and, at the same time, voice their political demands, form solid strategic alliances and coordinate land-recovery initiatives. Resumo O artigo examina as estratégias de sobrevivência e reações políticas de grupos indígenas em áreas de fronteiras agrícolas, que são fortemente influenciadas por símbolos culturais, vínculos familiares e respostas vinculadas ao apego pela terra. Discute-se a especificidade da trajetória sócio-espacial dos povos indígenas e, além disso, propõe-se uma tipologia do espaço indígena. A análise é dedicada especialmente ao exemplo emblemático da fronteira vivida pelos Guarani-Kaiowá da América do Sul. A sabedoria e a resistência dos grupos Guarani-Kaiowá derivam da simultânea etnização do espaço e da espacialização da cultura. Essa experiência demostra uma agência geográfica moldada por práticas religiosas, fortes laços familiares e a capacidade de negociar internamente o retorno às suas áreas originais (retomadas). Há muitas lições a serem aprendidas, em particular a capacidade de absorver a brutalidade crescente e dissimulada que caracteriza o avanço da fronteira e, ao mesmo tempo, de expressar demandas políticas, formar alianças estratégicas sólidas e coordenar iniciativas de recuperação das áreas perdidas para o desenvolvimento.

O debate global sobre a questao ambiental clama por mais efetivas e inovadoras acoes que possam oferecer maior credibilidade e uma melhor compreensao da relacao Humanidade e Natureza. Para o desenvolvimento desta relacao, e importante pensar e elaborar novas estrategias de planejamento ambiental, tal como programas de Pagamento por Servicos Ambientais (PSAs). A justifcativa para estes programas e de que os procedimentos vinculados a conservacao requerem um melhor aperfeicoamento, para que seja reforcada a conciliacao entre desenvolvimento economico, desenvolvimento social, preservacao e conservacao das areas naturais. No mais, os PSAs podem permitir um maior ganho de tempo para que a Sociedade possa rever seus conceitos vinculados aos valores eticos ambientais, especialmente quando relacionados a questao do sistema de mercado que explora muito mais do que o planeta consegue recompor. Seguindo este objetivo, o ponto central deste artigo e discutir sobre a importância dos PSAs no âmbito das politicas ambientais e examinar a perspectiva da aplicacao destes PSAs no Brasil em um escopo macroescalar.

In an era of increased human pressure on planet Earth, sound environmental governance regimes are more important than ever. Digital technologies are increasingly turned to by environmental regulators to aid governance and communication. We examine the ‘behind the scenes’ institutional dynamics of a public body in its digital information provision (specifically dynamic river level information). Based on in-depth interviews with staff across a large environmental regulator we have brought to light four pivotal areas of institutional dynamics: (1) institutional priority and path dependency; (2) management and resources; (3) institutional identity and interdepartmental dynamics; and (4) ability and willingness to change. We gained insight into explicit and covert barriers and opportunities in relation to digital information provision that are likely to occur in other public institutions too. Besides identified barriers that were of a technical, structural, managerial or cultural nature, arguably the most important barrier was conceptual, i.e. the prevalence of ‘efficiency and efficacy’ perspectives on information and communications technology (ICT) amongst staff, in which ICT is primarily perceived as a neutral solution in itself to a wide variety of issues. Opportunities were nonetheless present in the form of enthusiasm and some critical thinking about digital innovation among staff, and an emphasis on the importance of stakeholder inclusion in the design of ICT. We conclude that there is a need to connect institutional social learning with the development of ‘conceptual perspectives’ on ICT, in which ICT is not seen as a solution in itself, but as a set of tools in a wider transformational process, or as a lens to look at existing or new practices. This is more likely to strengthen cornerstones of contemporary environmental governance, such as improved information access and reconceptualisations of ‘traditional’ barriers of uncertainty, liability and distrust in relation to information provision.

The intricacy of global agri-food business today is, at once, product and also co-producer of the hegemonic modernisation of capitalism according to the discourse and the strategies of neoliberalism. The expansion of neoliberal agribusiness, situated in the wider context of the politico-ecological economy of contemporary capitalism, is considered with the assistance of an original analytical framework structured around three explanatory categories: displacement (sectoral and spatial transformations), financialisation (the priority of making money over agriculture outcomes) and mystification (dissimulation of the neoliberalising trends and of associated risks and disputes). The proposed analytical framework has significant implications for research in human geography, especially within politico-economy and neoliberalism studies, to the extent that it encapsulates interdependent processes that are together responsible for the revitalisation of agribusiness and for the legitimisation of global agri-food markets. The framework is then used to highlight the historico-geographical repercussions of neoliberalised agribusiness in Brazil, which was an element of the conservative responses to the crisis of accumulation caused by the exhaustion of developmentalist policies and state-led entrepreneurialism. Brazilian agribusiness seems to thrive on a peculiar combination of tradition and modernity, as its apparent success betrays a clear attempt to temporarily placate the structural contradictions of capitalist agriculture while tensions and reactions become increasingly evident.

One of the main processes of politico-economic change in the Amazon Region today is the construction of large-scale water projects, especially for hydroelectricity generation and river navigation (associated with export-oriented agribusiness and mining). The article discusses resource grabbing and environmental injustices through a cultural, political economy framework to assess the main direction and the internal dimensions of development trends. Water projects are assessed concerning the contradictory advance of modernity, the ramifications of corrupted practices and the narrow basis of a prevailing technocratic and reductionist rationality.

•Amazon water development is an increasingly contested issue of global significance.•Recent engineering projects replicate the developmentalist rationality of the 1970s.•Cultural political economy is helpful to assess resource grabbing and injustices.•Sensibility to culture and society needs to be connected with cross-scale politics.

The sustainability and the prospects of contemporary agribusiness are discussed taking into account trends, controversies, ideologies, practices and pending demands. The growing hegemony of agribusiness in the world today is analyzed making use of a conceptual framework of agro-neoliberalism that embraces three main areas of interaction, namely, renewed public–private alliances, novel techno-economic strategies that intensify socio-ecological exploitation and the containment of critical reactions. The critical importance of export-led agribusiness for the Brazilian economy provides a paradigmatic opportunity to apply this conceptual framework and investigate the foundations and geographical specificities of agro-neoliberalism. The article also discusses recent politico-economic adjustments and early signs of the exhaustion of Brazilian agro-neoliberalism, despite its undisputed hegemony. Neoliberal agricultural policies in Brazil have enabled the mobilization of agricultural resources, not for the purpose of domestic food security, but primarily for capital accumulation and the reinforcement of long-term social and economic trends that, ultimately, undermine prospects for sustained agricultural growth and broader sustainable development.

It was a momentous occasion when, on 12 November 2016, after a tortuous course of events, Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos optimistically proclaimed the reaching of a final accord that would ...

The concept of biocultural diversity is confronted with contemporary changes that impact on local communities, such as globalization and digital transformations. Engaging the conceptual flexibility of &lsquo, biocultural diversity&rsquo, we studied nature-based tourism at the intersection of indigenous communities and the digital realm. We employed a political ecology perspective to examine online and offline representations of biocultural diversity in the Brazilian Pantanal, one of the biggest wetlands in the world, and home to groups of peoples known as the Pantaneiros. Data from interviews with 48 stakeholders in the tourist sector were structured along three &lsquo, myths&rsquo, &mdash, the Uncivilised, Unrestrained, and Unchanged&mdash, for which we have also constructed counter narratives. Each myth denoted the primacy of biodiversity, and ignored broader dimensions of the Pantanal as a bioculturally diverse landscape. The relationships of the Pantaneiros with their environment were found to be intricate and had clear repercussions for tourism, but ironically, reference to the Pantaneiro culture in nature-based tourism was superficial. Moreover, thriving on the myths, this form of tourism perpetuates skewed power structures and social inequalities. Lower-class Pantaneiros likely suffer most from this. We recommend stakeholder engagement with a biocultural design that facilitates the integration of other-than-biodiversity values, and that thereby promotes sustainability of the entire social-ecological system.

In light of the peace accord between the Colombian government and the FARC in 2016, this article scrutinizes present-day dilemmas and obstacles to a sustainable settlement capable of addressing the long-term developmental inequities of Colombia. It is expected that as Colombia becomes more integrated in the globalized economy, the many parties involved in the conflict will increasingly realize that they have more to gain with peace than otherwise and that this will pave the way to a renewed effort toward peace. Yet despite its many promises, as of now, the peace negotiations have primarily served as a means of potentially boosting the economy and facilitating access to leading business groups and foreigner investors to Colombian resources rather than as a transformative move toward much-needed political and economic inclusivity. In fact, disturbing continuities between the inequalities that deepened during the protracted civil war and elements of 2016 peace agreement are noticeable.

The prospects of agro-neoliberalism in Brazil are analysed through a critical reading of tendencies, techno-economic strategies and political disputes. Qualitative information, obtained in successive fieldwork campaigns, was used to assess trends and structure uncertainty. Empirical data also helped to describe three future scenarios that oscillate between the continuation of current agro-neoliberal trends (facilitated by the appropriation of sustainability and innovation agendas), the return of strong state interventions or the decline and eventual collapse of the agribusiness sector (due to sanitary risks or politico-economic reactions). The overall conclusion is that it is difficult to envisage the emergence of any radical alternative focused on agrarian justice or the production of basic food. Alternative developments would require a strong coordination of national and international social groups and political will to construct a different future for farmers, consumers and wider society.

The article examines some of the main trends of the modernisation of agribusiness and raises some questions about geographical transformations taking place in the centre and north of Brazil. The country represents an emblematic case of neo-liberalised agriculture in need of further investigation. It is discussed in the text how corporate, industrial-scale agribusiness practices in Brazil bring back some spectral elements of capitalism, which never disappeared and in which the invisible becomes visible again. It is a phenomenon of multiple dialectics that needs further theoretical, methodological and investigative elaboration. The most dramatic circumstances, and most interesting for academics to study, are at the frontier of the expansion of agribusiness, where spatially and temporally patterns are heterogeneous and largely unpredictable. Agribusiness is especially promoted at the agriculture frontier in Brazil because it is in itself an economic, ecological and ethical frontier. Therefore, critical research into the complexity of contemporary agribusiness should really be about the political economy of alternatives to the highly vulnerable and unsatisfactory approaches to food and agriculture that prevail today and continue to expand unabated.

The article offers an examination of poverty and development in the Amazon, moving beyond the conventional view which places the blame on infrastructure deficiencies, economic isolation or institutional failures. It examines synergistically connected processes that form the persistent poverty-making geography of the Amazon region. The discussion is based on qualitative research conducted in two emblematic areas in Bolivia (Pando) and Brazil (Para). The immediate and long-term causes of socioeconomic problems have been reinterpreted through a politico-ecological perspective required to investigate the apparent paradox of impoverished areas within rich ecosystems and abundant territorial resources. Empirical results demonstrate that, first, development is enacted through the exercise of hegemony over the entirety of socionature and, second, because poverty is the lasting materiality of development it cannot be alleviated through conventional mechanisms of economic growth based on socionatural hegemony. The main conclusion is that overcoming the imprint of poverty on Amazonian ecosystem entails a radical socioecological reaction. Additionally, the multiple and legitimate demands of low-income groups do not start from a state of hopeless destitution, but from a position of strength provided by their interaction with the forest ecosystems and with other comparable groups in the Amazon and elsewhere.