A territorialidade camponesa: os centros agrícolas como um lugar de integração ao capital. Gleba boca da mata/barreirão no município de João Lisboa - MA (1950-1987)

Abstract

The peasants were one of the main protagonists of the expansion front in western Maranhão during the twentieth century. In this process of occupation along the arch of the Amazon rainforest in the state, the peasants experienced a land diversity marked by their interrelationship with the specificity in front of expansion and with their respective geographic environments. This thesis examines the territorial actions of peasants, as a result of the transformations that occurred in production, their occupation and appropriation of land in the southwest of Maranhão, through the tiny places founded by them, denominated 'Centers' as a way of anticipating an agricultural space under pressure from other segments and agents of society, in the dispute the use of land and economic exploitation by force expansion of capitalism. To do so, we start with an analysis of the formation and conformation of the region, which involved the colonization known as 'spontaneous', carried out by the peasants, whose empirical reality is the Gleba Boca da Mata / Barreirão, in the municipality of João Lisboa- Maranhão between 1950 and 1987. With input in the concepts of space, region, territoriality and agricultural centers we adopted a combined Social History and Oral History methodology. To start in understanding the peasants in their territorial actions in the Gleba Boca da Mata / Barreirão, we start from the assumption that it would be fundamental research to deal with the productive process, along with the capitalism advance in the countryside, due to the transformations that occurred in the region, whether agro-pastoral or forest since the region is characterized as a transition area composed of Amazon forest, babaçu forest and cerrado. So we discussed the different forms of occupation in this area and the foundation of the peasant centers since they were the main structuring element of their land tenure. The research concludes that peasant agricultural centers are not only a place of work and shelter, they constitute an anticipation of space, a place that serves as a springboard for new opportunities in the orbit of capital and also as a place of integration.