Government And The Economy On The Amazon Frontier

World Bank Environment Paper No. 11.Addresses issues of local governance in frontier economies in relation to environmental and political sustainability. Covers problems of mining, farming, and disincentives.

World Bank Environment Paper No. 11.Addresses issues of local governance in frontier economies in relation to environmental and political sustainability. Covers problems of mining, farming, and disincentives.

A path-breaking study combining perspectives from economic history, social anthropology, and political science to demonstrate that Amazonian frontier economies are not doomed to a self-reproducing condition of lawlessness, marginality, and underdevelopment.

This book discusses the outcomes of more than ten years of research in the southern tracts of the Amazon region, and addresses the expansion of the agricultural frontier, consolidation of the agribusiness-based economy, and expansion of regional infrastructure (roads, dams, urban centres, etc). It combines extensive empirical evidence with the international literature on frontier-making and regional Amazonian development, and adopts a critical politico-geographical perspective that will benefit scholars in various other disciplines. This book is intended to push the current theoretical and methodological boundaries regarding the controversies and impacts of agribusiness in the region. A new international scientific network, led by the author, is investigating the broader context of the themes analysed here.

This provocative new book presents the results of twenty years of research on deforestation in the Amazon. By carefully observing the changing character of human settlements and their association with deforestation over such a prolonged period, the author is able to reject much of the 'perceived wisdom'.

Frontier Road uses the history of one road in southern Colombia—known locally as “the trampoline of death”—to demonstrate how state-building processes and practices have depended on the production and maintenance of frontiers as inclusive-exclusive zones, often through violent means. Considers the topic from multiple perspectives, including ethnography of the state, the dynamics of frontiers, and the nature of postcolonial power, space, and violence Draws attention to the political, environmental, and racial dynamics involved in the history and development of transport infrastructure in the Amazon region Examines the violence that has sustained the state through time and space, as well as the ways in which ordinary people have made sense of and contested that violence in everyday life Incorporates a broad range of engaging sources, such as missionary and government archives, travel writing, and oral histories