Redes, aprendizados e ativos territoriais na Amazônia: o processo de qualificação do açaí do rio Canaticu, arquipélago do Marajó, Pará

Abstract

It investigates the process of social construction of territorial assets in the Amazon and how they emerge and reveal territories, shaped by the general characteristics of a post-Fordist economy. Territorial assets are the result of the metamorphosis that originates from generic resources (virtual assets) that pass to (generic) assets through the market. They may or may not become specific or territorial assets, depending on the engagement of the territorial system of actors. An eminently alive and diligent process of formulation and resolution of problems, mostly unpublished, related to production, which allows revealing latent resources and enhancing the territory, characterize this territorial dynamic. The research studied the case of the açaí of the Canaticu River in Curralinho, in the archipelago of Marajó (PA), from its potential resource time to its current phase of generic asset/resource in the process of a specification. It had as a theoretical-conceptual framework the (new) economic sociology and the studies on the specification of territorial assets. This case study research tries to understand the dynamics of the socio-territorial formation of the Canaticu River and its networks of social actors. The choice of method allowed the necessary interpretive focus on the contemporary phenomenon of the qualification of territorial assets within a living social context, without clear limits between the phenomenon and the social context. Moreover, the technically unique research environment, with many more variables of interest than data sources, corroborated the choice of method. Thus, the research relied on various sources of evidence and previous theoretical propositions to conduct data collection and analysis. Field research has identified two processes of territorial activation and interdependent: (a) the dynamics of formation of a network of territorial activation of the Canaticu River, from the constitution embedded in the long history of the network of actors in search of rights; and (b) the activation of açaí, a process of transformation of generic assets into assets of the territory, based on learning and territorial innovations that allow the collective construction of territorial quality.