Colonization in Central Brazil

the agricultural frontier in Mato Grosso from the 1950s to the 1970s

Abstract

This article seeks to insert itself in the debate on the history of the expansion of the agricultural frontier in Central Brazil, proposing a dialogue with different temporalities and occupation models. However, the temporal and spatial cut-off of this study refers to the study of pioneer colonization processes in the state, with emphasis on two distinct regions, the north, and southwest of Mato Grosso, between the years 1950 and 1970. The research uses a documentary source produced during field research by German geographers such as Gerd Kohlhepp and Gottfried Pfeifer, and who are part of Kohlhepp's private archive. The work seeks to dialogue with the theme of the border as part of the theoretical-methodological assumptions of environmental history and historical geography, describing the complex relationships between society and nature in the Brazilian Legal Amazon. The study also allows us to understand the national and foreign investments that helped to transform this region into one of the global areas of greatest agricultural production