Banca de DEFESA: CLOVES DOS SANTOS ARAUJO

Continuities and discontinuities of possession and appropriation of land/territory in the western region of Bahia.

Space Production– Conflicts – Subjects – Possession - Appropriation

This Thesis was structured with the main objective of understanding the performance of the multiple and contradictory subjects of collective land conflicts and analyzing how this action contributes to the social processes of production and valorization of agrarian spaces in the Municipalities of Formosa of River Black and Mountain range Golden /Baianópolis, in western Bahia. This objective stems from a process of displacement of the research object, previously proposed by the researcher, since, initially, its central purpose was to analyze how the State (especially the Judge-State) acts in the face of collective conflicts resulting from socio-territorial disputes. During the research, he realized the need to give voice and place not only to the political-legal system, but, mainly, to the social subjects involved in the conflicts; and, in this case, to peasants (squatters, family farmers, geraizeira communities, among others), to landowners, businessmen, miners, land grabbers and agro traders, in their various configurations and contradictions. With this displacement, the objective itself gained a new meaning. Before, the State was seen as the mediator of conflicts; now, he reappears as the other side of the conflict's dialectic, alongside other subjects who permeate and dispute him. The State is, in principle, the State of capital and, therefore, the State of the landowners and the agro-business. However, in certain contexts, it can and does act as a mediator in conflicts, for example, socio-territorial conflicts involving traditional communities from Funds and Clasps of Pasture. In certain conjunctures or punctual situations it reappears broken, as, for example, when certain judges go against political guidelines of rulers or interests of landowners. Thus, this Thesis was produced adopting as a central element the study of the performance of diverse and contradictory social subjects in conflict and their mediators and was oriented from the concepts of space production, collective socio-territorial conflicts and the performance of social subjects that produce spaces and conflicts.