A geographical reading of the territory, action characters and imposed paradoxes in Chapada Gaúcha, Minas Gerais, Brazil

Abstract

By reading the Uses of the Territory, Milton Santos’s theory, active and conflicting forces are identified in the dispute for natural resources and the power of hegemonic actors. With the intensification of agriculture in the Brazilian Cerrado, exacerbated consumption and pollution were also activated. This sometimes resulted in the scarcity of important water resources for the entire national territory, directly affecting traditional populations and conservation areas. The challenge here is to expose the antagonism of interests between users of the territory for planting and selling commodities and the territorialised communities, those who have an organic relationship with the place. This study is based on the theory centred on the perspective of the Global South - Santos, Porto-Gonçalves, Quijano, Mbembe, Mignolo, among others - in dialogue with Morin's Complexity Theory - non-Global South. This qualitative research is based on exploratory research, carried out in 2022, in the municipality of Chapada Gaúcha and nearby areas. Information was obtained from informal conversations with residents, as well as research into secondary data, bibliographic and documentary, which shows how disputes are established, how all this affects local populations and the environmental impacts resulting from extensive agricultural cultivation that is detrimental to regional socio-biodiversity. As a result, it was found that a minority group of people from outside the area involved in agro-farming subjugate the different forms of life that depend on the territory. Sociocultural overlap leads to the obliteration of territorial sociobiodiversity.