Socio-environmental conflicts in the Northeast of Brazil: A topic of interest for Social Work

Abstract This article presents research focusing on the characterization of the current context of socio-environmental conflicts in Northeast Brazil as part of the expressions of the “environmental issue” and its confrontation nowadays. These conflicts are pointed out as new challenges to the field of Social Work. This is an exploratory bibliographic and documentary research. The results show a significant growth of conflicts in the region; land as a major environmental resource in dispute; and who are the main political subjects involved in these conflicts, representing the capital and the labor. The conclusion is that the current economic development model is constitutive and a constituent of the observed worrying scenario, as it is based on taking the national economy back to produce primary goods, commodity, and deepening the associated, dependent, and unequal place historically assigned to Brazil within the capitalist world market.