O Moderno Arcaísmo Nacional: investimento estrangeiro direto e expropriação territorial no agronegócio canavieiro

This paper aims to understand territorial reconfigurations triggered in the Brazilian countryside from the early 2000s due to the expansion of monocultures of sugarcane for the agrofuels’ production. For this, it uses a theoretical approach that considers the existence of environmental and territorial conflicts associated with the operative logic of capitalist exploitation, and seeks to elucidate the presence of hegemonic speeches aimed to become invisible distinct and non-dominant modes of use and ownership of natural resources. The construction of the argument will use concepts considered obsolete by the academic doxa, such as imperialism, dependency, and primitive accumulation. Moreover, inspired by the contributions of Latin American intellectuals agglutinated in the so-called paradigm modernitycoloniality, the article will propose that the asymmetric ownership of natural resources has been part of a condition of coloniality in the appropriation of nature.