Armin Mathis
Regional Development · Amazonia · Resource Extraction · Climate Governance
My research examines how global economic, political and societal transformations acquire regionally specific forms and shape possibilities and constraints for development.
Amazonia has been the principal empirical setting of this work for more than three decades. My current research focuses on regional development in world society, resource extraction and mining, society–nature relations and climate governance, extractive communities, public policy and applied regional research.
Research
My current theoretical programme, Regional Development in World Society, examines how heterogeneous world-societal processes become selectively connected within historically evolving regional configurations and how the resulting regional configurations shape different capacities, dependencies, inequalities and possibilities for development.
Empirical research across Amazonia provides observation fields for examining these processes under different historical, organizational and material conditions.
Regional Development in World Society
A theoretical research programme on how world-societal processes become selectively connected, organizationally stabilized, materially conditioned and institutionally condensed within regional configurations.
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Mining & Extractive Transformations
— Resource extraction, global markets and regional transformation.
Society–Nature & Climate
— Ecological conditions, knowledge and climate governance.
Extractive Communities & Territorial Relations
— Livelihoods, organizations, participation and differentiated access.
Policy, Evaluation & Applied Research
— Knowledge, planning and organized regional intervention.
Current Projects
My current projects connect theoretical research with empirical investigation and international scientific cooperation.
BEACONSplus
2026–2029 · Horizon Europe · Coastal Resilience and Climate Adaptation
International research and innovation on coastal resilience, climate adaptation and sociobioeconomic transformation, including research in the Belém Beacon Site.
Leibniz Lab Systemic Sustainability — Belém Pilot Region
2025–2027 · Leibniz Association · ZMT · UFPA/NAEA
Research on biodiversity, food systems, agroforestry, cooperatives, local knowledge and circular bioeconomy in the Belém region.
Democracy, Labor, and Gender Relations in Cooperatives and Associations
2026–2027 · UFPA–Université de Strasbourg
Comparative research on labour, gender relations, collective organization and participation in cooperatives and associations, including current work in the Caeté-Taperaçu Marine Extractive Reserve.
Amazonia as a Comparative Observation Field
Amazonia is not treated in my research as a homogeneous region or a self-contained social unit.
Instead, I approach it as a comparative observation field containing heterogeneous regional configurations shaped by different histories of settlement, resource use, infrastructure, organization, political intervention and connectivity to world society.
Research in Manaus, the Tapajós region, Carajás and northeastern Pará makes it possible to compare how global markets, mining, public policy, environmental governance and changing ecological conditions become regionally consequential in different ways.
Publications
My publications address regional development, social systems theory, mining and resource governance, public policy, society–nature relations and Amazonian transformations.
They include journal articles, books, edited volumes and book chapters developed through academic research, international collaboration and applied research projects.
Teaching & Supervision
My teaching and supervision connect regional development, social theory, public policy and empirical research on Amazonia.
I supervise research at graduate and postgraduate levels and work with students on theoretical, empirical and applied questions concerning regional development, resource governance, public policy and socio-environmental transformation.
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Photography
Photography accompanies parts of my field research and provides a visual record of landscapes, infrastructures, livelihoods and territorial transformations encountered during research in Amazonia and elsewhere.
At the same time, photography also constitutes an independent visual practice extending beyond academic documentation.
About
I am a social scientist and researcher working on regional development, Amazonia and the regional consequences of transformations in world society.
My academic work is based at NAEA/UFPA — Núcleo de Altos Estudos Amazônicos, Universidade Federal do Pará, in Belém, Brazil, with long-standing international research cooperation in Europe and Latin America.