Territorialism and the development policy: territory production strategies in Brazil

Abstract The historical-geographical formation process of the Brazilian society was conducted by modernity promises in which the notion of development, derived from the notion of progress, was the social fuel that sustained the movement of inclusion of capitalist relations in Brazil in the 20th century. The prevailing idea in governmental action has been the overcoming of regional inequality through the inclusion of Brazilian regions in the capitalism competitive circuit. This paper argues that this discourse has been a strategy of territory production, typical of hegemonic agents within the capitalist reproduction circuit. To understand this process, this paper revisits a geographical notion that has been forgotten: territorialism.