Extractive Communities & Territorial Relations

Amazonia · Extractive Communities · Resource Governance · Regional Development

Communities, Resources and Regional Configurations

Research on extractive communities examines how populations whose livelihoods depend upon natural resources become connected to markets, political institutions, legal structures, environmental governance and scientific knowledge.

The research does not treat communities as socially closed or territorially self-contained units. Their social and economic relations extend across different spatial scales and societal contexts.

Fishing communities, extractive-reserve populations, small-scale producers and other resource-dependent groups participate simultaneously in local livelihood practices, commodity markets, public policies, environmental regulation and organizational networks.

The analytical problem is therefore not simply how external processes affect local communities.

Rather, research asks:

How are relations between populations, resources, organizations and world-societal processes formed and transformed within regional configurations?

Research Development

Research on extractive communities and territorial relations has developed from a broader concern with the relations between natural-resource use and regional development in Amazonia. Earlier research on resource extraction and sustainable development raised questions about how resource-dependent production and livelihoods become connected to markets, public policies and changing forms of resource governance, and how these connections affect regional development.

These questions subsequently expanded toward the governance of natural resources and the institutional arrangements through which access to and use of resources are organized. Research on extractive reserves, conservation and natural-resource management increasingly drew attention to the relations between resource-dependent populations, public regulation, collective organizations and historically established forms of resource use.

A further development concerned the organization of livelihoods and the differentiated conditions under which populations participate in resource-based economies. Research on fisheries, production chains and extractive reserves brought questions of labour, market access, public programmes, associations and organizational capacities more explicitly into the analysis. This shifted attention from resource governance alone toward the ways in which livelihoods are connected to wider economic, political and organizational relations.

Current research extends these questions by examining gender relations, extractive labour and collective organization in the Caeté-Taperaçu Marine Extractive Reserve in northeastern Pará. Particular attention is given to women’s participation in associations and cooperatives, divisions of labour, access to value chains and the organizational conditions through which different forms of participation and representation become possible.

These research trajectories increasingly converge within the theoretical programme Regional Development in World Society. Extractive communities provide an important empirical field for investigating how populations, material resources, livelihoods and organizations become selectively connected to heterogeneous world-societal processes within historically evolving regional configurations.

Current research builds on questions that emerged from earlier work on natural-resource use, sustainable development and resource governance, while reformulating them within a different theoretical framework. It examines how relations between populations, resources, livelihoods and organizations contribute to the formation and transformation of regional configurations.

Organizations, Associations and Cooperatives

Organizations occupy a particularly important position in these relations.

Associations, cooperatives, producer organizations, unions, public agencies, universities and non-governmental organizations provide organizational settings in which heterogeneous societal expectations concerning resources, livelihoods, regulation, markets and collective interests are selectively processed.

They may organize access to public programmes, represent collective interests, establish relations with markets, administer resources, participate in environmental governance or facilitate access to scientific and technical knowledge (Seixas & Berkes 2004; Maneschy et al. 2017).

Through decisions, membership rules, programmes and organizational routines, they select which demands can be processed, which forms of participation are organizationally recognized and which relations to external programmes, markets and institutions can be established.

Organizations therefore do not simply represent pre-existing communities. They contribute to the formation and stabilization of relations through which populations become connected to political, legal, economic and other societal processes.

This makes associations and cooperatives particularly important observation sites for examining how heterogeneous societal expectations acquire regionally specific organizational forms.

How do organizations selectively process heterogeneous societal expectations and thereby contribute to the formation and transformation of regional configurations?

Labour, Livelihoods and Value Chains

Resource-dependent livelihoods increasingly operate within economic relations extending far beyond the places in which production occurs.

Fish, agricultural products, forest products and other natural resources may enter commodity chains involving traders, cooperatives, processing firms, retailers, certification systems and consumers located elsewhere.

These connections create possibilities for income, specialization and market access, but they may also generate dependencies upon prices, intermediaries, technologies, standards and organizational capacities (Scoones 1998; Bebbington 1999).

Labour therefore provides an important analytical connection between material conditions, economic operations and regional social structures.

The organization of production, processing and commercialization affects how value is distributed among actors and places and which populations are able to participate in particular markets.

Value chains can consequently be analysed not simply as economic sequences but as regionally structured relations of participation, organization, access and dependency.

Gender Relations, Participation and Unequal Access

Participation in resource-based economies and organizations is not socially homogeneous.

Gender relations influence divisions of labour, control over resources, access to organizations, representation in decision-making and participation in markets (Rocheleau, Thomas-Slayter & Wangari 1996).

Activities that are economically or socially indispensable may remain weakly recognized because they occur outside formally registered production, market transactions or organizational representation (Machado 2007; Vieira et al. 2013; Silva & Maneschy 2020).

At the same time, changes in associations, cooperatives, public programmes and value-chain relations can create new conditions for participation, representation and economic autonomy and thereby contribute to transformations in established gender relations.

Such transformations do not necessarily eliminate existing inequalities. New organizational and market opportunities may themselves be selectively accessible.

Gender relations therefore provide an important field for analysing how access, participation and representation are differentiated within regional configurations and how organizational change can simultaneously create new capacities and reproduce inequalities.

Territorial Relations and Resource Governance

Extractive communities are connected to territories not simply through geographical residence but through historically established relations of resource use, labour, property, regulation, knowledge and collective organization.

These relations become particularly visible when resources are subjected to new forms of political, legal, economic and scientific observation, environmental regulation and conservation.

Protected areas, extractive reserves, fisheries regulation, land-use rules, environmental standards and conservation programmes can redefine legitimate forms of access to resources and establish new organizational requirements (Freitas et al. 2017; Seixas & Berkes 2004).

Territories may consequently become objects of competing societal observations.

The same coastal environment, for example, may simultaneously be observed as a livelihood space, an ecosystem requiring conservation, a jurisdiction subject to regulation, a source of commodities, a repository of carbon or an object of scientific investigation.

Territorial relations are therefore continually reconstructed as new societal expectations become connected to historically established practices, institutions and forms of resource use.

The Amazonian Coastal Zone as an Observation Site

The coastal regions of northeastern Pará provide an important empirical setting for studying these processes.

Fishing, small-scale agriculture, mangrove extraction and other resource-dependent livelihoods coexist with extractive reserves, environmental regulation, public policies, associations, cooperatives and increasingly extensive market relations.

Historically established forms of resource use encounter new expectations related to conservation, formalization, commercialization, environmental monitoring and climate governance.

Associations and cooperatives occupy important positions within these changing configurations because they can structure access to public programmes, markets, regulatory institutions and external organizations.

Yet organizational capacities and opportunities for participation are unevenly distributed.

Gender relations, divisions of labour, access to resources, organizational membership and market relations can produce different possibilities of participation among populations and within communities themselves.

The Amazonian coastal zone therefore provides an observation site for analysing how resource relations, organizations, livelihoods and differentiated forms of participation and access become connected within historically evolving regional configurations under conditions of world society.

Current Research Questions

The research currently concentrates on several interconnected questions:

1. How do resource-dependent populations participate in economic, political, legal and environmental-governance processes extending beyond their immediate territories?
2. How do associations, cooperatives and other organizations shape access, representation and collective action?
3. How do market relations and value chains transform labour, livelihoods and regional dependencies?
4. How do gender relations shape differentiated access to resources, organizations, representation and markets?
5. Under what conditions do changing relations of resource use, organization and livelihood generate new capacities or reproduce inequalities and dependencies?

Extractive Communities and Regional Configurations

Research on extractive communities contributes to Regional Development in World Society by examining how populations and livelihoods become connected to heterogeneous societal processes through resources, organizations and territorial relations.

From this perspective:

Extractive communities are not territorially self-contained social units. Their social and economic relations are formed within historically contingent regional configurations in which populations, material resources, livelihoods and heterogeneous world-societal processes become selectively connected, organizationally processed and institutionally stabilized.

From this perspective, changes in markets, environmental governance, organizations or resource regulation are not simply external forces acting upon communities.

Their regional consequences depend upon how they become connected to historically established relations of labour, resource use, organization, knowledge and inequality.

This perspective makes extractive communities an important empirical field for investigating a broader problem:

how world-societal connectivity generates differentiated forms of organization, participation, dependency and developmental capacity within regional configurations.

Selected References

Bebbington, A. (1999). “Capitals and Capabilities: A Framework for Analyzing Peasant Viability, Rural Livelihoods and Poverty.” World Development, 27(12), 2021–2044.

Luhmann, N. (2000). Organisation und Entscheidung. Westdeutscher Verlag.

Machado, D. (2007). “Catadoras de caranguejo e saberes tradicionais na conservação de manguezais da Amazônia brasileira.” Revista Estudos Feministas, 15(2), 485–490. DOI: 10.1590/S0104-026X2007000200016.

Maneschy, M. C. A., Ribeiro, T. G., Moreira, E. S., Nummer, F. V., & Gonçalves, I. L. M. P. (2017). “Sociologia e gestão ambiental: considerações a partir de uma Reserva Extrativista Marinha.” Ciências Sociais Unisinos, 53(2), 339–348. DOI: 10.4013/csu.2017.53.2.18.

Rocheleau, D., Thomas-Slayter, B., & Wangari, E. (eds.) (1996). Feminist Political Ecology: Global Issues and Local Experiences. Routledge.

Scoones, I. (1998). Sustainable Rural Livelihoods: A Framework for Analysis. IDS Working Paper 72. Institute of Development Studies.

Seixas, C. S., & Berkes, F. (2004). “From Common Property to Co-management: Lessons from Brazil's First Maritime Extractive Reserve.” Marine Policy, 28(5), 419–428. DOI: 10.1016/j.marpol.2003.10.017.

Silva, A. P. R., & Maneschy, M. C. A. (2020). “Desenvolvimento e Equidade de Gênero? Experiência de um Projeto de Geração de Renda para Mulheres em uma Reserva Extrativista Marinha no Pará.” Revista Científica Gênero na Amazônia, 16–18, 249–262. DOI: 10.18542/rcga.v0i16-18.13296.

Vieira, N., Siqueira, D. E., Ever, M., & Gomes, M. (2013). “Divisão sexual do trabalho e relações de gênero em contexto estuarino-costeiro amazônico.” Amazônica – Revista de Antropologia, 5(3), 806–835. DOI: 10.18542/amazonica.v5i3.1606.

Selected Research Projects

Formal and Informal Practices of Natural Resource Use and Management in the Amazon
2011–2015 · CAPES–NUFFIC · Brazilian Project Coordinator
Research on formal and informal practices of natural-resource use and management, with particular attention to relations between resource users, institutional arrangements and different forms of governance in Amazonia.

Governance, Conflict Management & Natural Resource Management in the Amazon
2013–2018 · CAPES Pró-Amazônia · Researcher / Subproject Coordinator
Research on governance, conflicts and cooperation surrounding natural-resource use in Amazonia, including the institutional and organizational arrangements through which competing expectations concerning resources are processed.

Selected Publications

Freitas, J. S., Mathis, A., Farias Filho, M. C., Homma, A. K. O., & Silva, D. C. C. (2017). “Reservas extrativistas na Amazônia: modelo conservação ambiental e desenvolvimento social?” GEOgraphia, 19(40), 150–160. DOI: 10.22409/GEOgraphia2017.v19i40.a13806.

Freitas, J. S., Farias Filho, M. C., Homma, A. K. O., & Mathis, A. (2018). “Reservas extrativistas sem extrativismo: uma tendência em curso na Amazônia?” Revista de Gestão Social e Ambiental, 12(1), 56–72. DOI: 10.24857/rgsa.v12i1.1388.

Farias, R. C. M., Filgueiras, G. C., Almeida, O. T., & Mathis, A. (2018). “Políticas públicas de crédito rural para cadeia produtiva da pesca e aquicultura no Brasil e região Norte, em período recente.” Papers do NAEA, Paper 392. DOI: 10.18542/papersnaea.v1i1.11131.

Current Research

Democracy, Labor, and Gender Relations in Cooperatives and Associations

2026–2027 · UFPA–Université de Strasbourg · Researcher, Brazilian Research Team

Within this project, my current research focuses on women extractivists in the Caeté-Taperaçu Marine Extractive Reserve in northeastern Pará. Particular attention is given to how gender relations shape divisions of labour, participation in associations and cooperatives, access to value chains and opportunities for representation and economic participation.

The research provides an empirical setting for examining how organizations selectively process heterogeneous expectations concerning livelihoods, markets, regulation and collective interests, and how organizational arrangements generate differentiated forms of access and participation within regional configurations.

Related Research

Regional Development in World Society →
The theoretical research programme examining how world-societal processes become regionally configured and shape possibilities and constraints for development.

Mining & Extractive Transformations →
Resource extraction, world-market integration and regional structural transformation.

Society–Nature & Climate →
Research on how ecological conditions, climate governance and global environmental change become regionally relevant within world society.

Policy, Evaluation & Applied Research →
Research on how public policies, planning, organizational capacities and institutional arrangements shape attempts to influence regional transformation.