Territorial disparities and infrastructure in South America: how to meet border regions demands?

• In Event: Political Consequences of Social Inclusion and Exclusion

Abstract

As a pillar of the new South American regionalism, the plan for the integration of regional infrastructure in South America (IIRSA) was launched in 2000, as to coordinate the connection of transportation, energy and telecommunication networks. Its announced purpose is not only to facilitate economic, political and social integration, but also to mitigate inequalities among the regions within the sub-continent. Although accurately criticized because of the focus on axes of integration, a spatial category that privileges the interests of the already most dynamic urban agglomerations in order to attract private investments to the infrastructure projects, IIRSA accounts for multi-scale planing and execution guidelines, raising expectations in terms of territorial cohesion and representation of peripheral regions demands within a yet centralized decision-making process. With that in mind, we conducted original field research in order to establish the different repercussions of IIRSA at two border areas directly affected by the initiative: Brazil-Uruguay and Brazil-Peru. The choice for focusing the analysis in two different border areas proved to be adequate since the transboundary character of the initiative has the potential to call attention upon these areas, generally defined as more vulnerable and less developed in South America. At the same time, the comparison between the two case studies allowed the apprehension of further variables that can interfere with the realization of local demands in terms of infrastructure implementation and usage.

Author

• Eduarda Figueiredo Scheibe, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne