Doctoral Dissertation Research: Property Rights and Social Mobilization Along an Amazonian Highway

The Brazilian government plans to pave the Santarem-Cuiaba highway (BR 163), the only road that traverses the Brazilian Amazon from south to north. This decision has reignited competition for property rights in a region known for its ambiguous land-tenure system and long history of violent conflict over land and resources. The impetus to pave the road is to facilitate the transport of soy harvests from the south of Brazil to the Amazon River for export. In response to the promised paving initiatives, industrial soy farmers have moved into this region and are now competing with smallholders, commercial loggers, and ranchers for the best land near the road. The Brazilian government has attempted to quell land conflict and facilitate sustainable development along the road in this 'frontier' region by redrawing property lines through land reform, creating a new mosaic of conservation and resource extraction areas, and surveying rural property boundaries. Conflict over property rights along the road persists, however. This doctoral dissertation research project will investigate the ways that these efforts to impose a formal land-tenure system interact with practices of claiming land and defining property on the ground. Through policy analysis, archival research, participatory mapping and ethnography, the doctoral candidate will examine the perspectives of actors from multiple interest groups involved in land conflict in order to understand how these different actors understand property rights and attempt to mobilize for and legitimize their claims to land.

Debates about road building in the Amazon have tended to focus on the relationship between roads and deforestation, calling for improved governance in order to ameliorate the environmental effects of road building. This research endeavors to broaden this discussion to address the complex social and political issues that can be obscured by a narrow focus on road building's environmental effects. By exploring the complex system of governance that emerges through the intersection of formal law and actions of multiple actors with different interests, power relationships and regional imaginaries, the findings of this research are expected to demonstrate that the Amazon frontier is not simply a lawless place whose issues can be resolved through better legislation and monitoring. By exploring complex systems of governance in place and how they work, this study will contribute to debates about the relationship between formal state structures and informal economic, social, and political practices. The project's results also will help to explain why efforts to address land-tenure issues in the region repeatedly fail, and they will shed light on the types of measures that might begin to alleviate the uneven effects of land conflict. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.