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Constructing landscape through resource extraction in Minas Gerais, Brazil

Sat, April 29, 4:00 to 5:45pm, TBA

Abstract

In Brazil, nature has been deeply transformed since the “discovery”, first to serve to the pragmatic mercantile logics of Portuguese colonisation and, more recently, it bas been used as a resource for national development and progress. In the mining state of Minas Gerais this has become more evident since the discovery of gold and diamonds in the early 18th century, when its territory began to be radically transformed, from a wilderness condition to a constructed cultural landscape. Today, with the advancement of extraction economies, now diversified into more extensive iron ore mining, Minas Gerais’ landscape has been further transformed into a complex networks of mines and towns and can be seen as “an ongoing medium of exchange, a medium that is embedded and evolved within the imaginative and material practices of different societies at different times” (Corner, 1999, p.5). In addition to the evolved 18th century network of colonial towns, a secondary layer of urbanisation has been added in the shape of enclaved condominiums. Those are the product of the third cycle of capital accumulation by large companies - the first being iron one, the second the exploration of lower-grade ores and, finally, the transformation of land into real estate business. This paper proposes therefore a reflection on the cultural and social formations that are entangled with resource extraction practices in an ever shifting constructed landscape in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, in face of juxtaposition of colonial heritage with gated communities that have been blurring urban-rural, local-global relations.

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