Projects
My projects connect theoretical research on regional development with empirical investigation in Amazonia, applied research and international scientific cooperation. They range from collaborative international research and long-term academic projects to university-extension activities and policy-oriented applied research.
Across these different formats, projects provide empirical and organizational settings for examining how global transformations, organizations, public policies, knowledge practices and changing material and ecological conditions become regionally consequential.
Together, they trace the development of a research trajectory that has progressively connected questions of regional development, resource extraction, public policy, natural-resource governance, society–nature relations and organizational capacity.
Research Framework
Regional Development in World Society
Theory Development · Regional Development · World Society
Regional Development in World Society (RWS) is my current theoretical research programme. It develops a conceptual framework for analysing how heterogeneous world-societal processes become selectively connected within historically evolving regional configurations and how these configurations shape possibilities and constraints for development.
The projects presented below are analytically distinct from RWS. Earlier projects preceded the development of the theoretical programme, while current projects have their own institutional objectives, research designs and expected outputs. At the same time, they provide empirical material and comparative settings that contribute to the continuing specification and critical examination of questions addressed within RWS.
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Current Research & International Cooperation
BEACONSplus — Building Resilience in Atlantic Communities through Innovation and Science
2026–2029 · Horizon Europe · Coastal Resilience · Climate Adaptation
BEACONSplus is an international Horizon Europe research and innovation project examining how scientific, Indigenous, traditional and local knowledge, environmental data and community participation can strengthen the resilience and climate-adaptation capacities of Atlantic coastal communities.
At UFPA, the project connects research on Amazonian mangrove ecosystems, socio-ecological resilience, environmental knowledge, ecosystem services and coastal communities with a wider Atlantic network of comparative research and knowledge exchange.
For my research, BEACONSplus provides an important setting for examining how global climate-related programmes, knowledge infrastructures and organizational networks become connected to specific regional conditions in the Amazonian coastal zone.
Leibniz Lab Systemic Sustainability — Belém Pilot Region
2025–2027 · Leibniz Lab Systemic Sustainability · ZMT · UFPA/NAEA
The Belém Pilot Region forms part of the international Leibniz Lab Systemic Sustainability, which examines the interconnected challenges of biodiversity loss, climate change, agriculture and food systems.
Research in the Brazilian Amazon documents and compares regional sustainability innovations involving agroforestry, cooperatives, extractive production, local knowledge, alternative food networks, circular bioeconomy and the use of agricultural residues.
The project provides an empirical setting for investigating how regional innovations emerge, how organizations connect knowledge, resources and markets, and under what conditions local initiatives may contribute to broader processes of sustainability transformation.
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Democracy, Labor, and Gender Relations in Cooperatives and Associations
2026–2027 · UFPA–Université de Strasbourg · Gender · Cooperatives · Amazonia
This international research cooperation examines how gender relations, workplace democracy and organizational structures shape women's participation, voice and decision-making power in cooperatives and productive associations.
The Brazilian research strand focuses particularly on organizations in the Caeté-Taperaçu Marine Extractive Reserve in northeastern Pará. It examines relations between extractive labour, cooperatives and associations, value chains, organizational participation and gendered access to decision-making.
The project provides a comparative setting for investigating how collective organizations can create new possibilities for participation while also reproducing existing inequalities and asymmetries.
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Recent Applied Research & University Extension
Applied and university-extension projects provide opportunities to examine how scientific knowledge becomes connected to public administration, planning and concrete processes of regional intervention.
These activities are analytically distinct from basic academic research. At the same time, they generate empirical material for examining how regional problems are defined, how knowledge becomes decision-relevant, how organizational and administrative capacities shape implementation, and why interventions may generate differentiated and unintended consequences.
Construindo um Planejamento Operacional em Canaã dos Carajás
2022–2026 · Completed August 2026 · UFPA/NAEA · University Extension · Municipal Planning · Mining Region
This multidisciplinary applied-research and planning project addresses the challenges of public intervention in Canaã dos Carajás, a municipality undergoing rapid economic, demographic and territorial transformation associated with large-scale mineral extraction.
The project combines empirical diagnosis, spatial and territorial analysis, administrative data, field research and operational planning across several interconnected policy domains.
Its principal components include the revision of the Participatory Master Plan and the development of municipal plans for environmental policy, urban mobility, solid-waste management, water resources and public use of Parque Natural Municipal Veredas dos Carajás.
Beyond their immediate planning purposes, these activities provide an empirical setting for investigating the relationships between mining-driven transformation, municipal organizations, knowledge production, infrastructure, public policy and regional development.
Selected Previous Research Projects
My current research builds upon several decades of projects concerned with regional development, resource extraction, public policy, natural-resource governance, society–nature relations and international research cooperation.
The projects selected here represent important stages in the development of questions that now converge within my current research programme.
State, Public Policy and Sustainable Development in Amazonia
1997–1999 · Fundação Ford · Public Policy · Regional Development
Research on state organization, public policy and sustainable development in Amazonia. The programme contributed to the development of a research trajectory concerned with political intervention, implementation and the institutional conditions under which attempts to influence regional development become possible.
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Amazônia 21 — Operational Instruments for Sustainable Development Management in Amazonia
1998–2002 · European Community / INCO-DC · International Research Cooperation
International research on sustainability indicators, material and energy flows and socio-ecological transformation in Amazonia. My research focused particularly on Local Material Flow Analysis in Amazonian communities, bringing questions of materiality, measurement and indicators more explicitly into my work on regional development.
Global Mercury Project
2002–2007 · GEF / UNDP / UNIDO · International Research & Intervention Project
The Global Mercury Project addressed environmental and health risks associated with mercury use in artisanal and small-scale gold mining. My research in the Brazilian component examined mining communities in the Tapajós region and the social, economic and organizational conditions under which technological and environmental interventions could become viable.
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MINESUPA — Sustainability of Mining in Pará
2006–2008 · FINEP/FNDCT · Mining · Regional Development
MINESUPA examined the expanding mineral economy of Pará through mineral production, integration into global mineral markets, companies, employment, public revenues and territorial consequences. The project marked an important transition from earlier research on artisanal gold mining toward a broader analysis of industrial mining and resource-based regional transformation.
GOMIAM — Gold Mining in the Amazon
2011–2016 · NWO-WOTRO CoCooN · International Comparative Research
GOMIAM was an international comparative project on artisanal and small-scale gold mining in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Suriname. For my research trajectory, it was particularly important in extending earlier work on mining toward questions of formalization, legal systems, organizations, conflict and differentiated regional contexts.
Formal and Informal Practices of Natural Resource Use and Management in the Amazon
2011–2015 · CAPES–NUFFIC · Brazil–Netherlands Research Cooperation
This international cooperation between UFPA/NAEA and CEDLA compared different systems of natural-resource use and governance in Amazonia, including aquatic resources, small-scale gold mining and large-scale corporate mining. It strengthened research on effective resource access, formal and informal institutions, and the role of organizations in natural-resource governance.
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Project Archive
The projects highlighted above represent selected stages in the development of my research. Other projects have addressed municipal governance, political elites, artisanal and small-scale mining, mining governance, transboundary mining, natural-resource conflict and international raw-material policy.
The Project Archive provides a chronological overview of these research, cooperation and applied-research activities and links to individual project pages where more detailed documentation is available.
Projects and Research Development
Research projects, international collaborations and applied-research activities are not treated simply as a chronological sequence of discrete undertakings. Across different periods, they have provided empirical, comparative and organizational settings through which broader research problems could be progressively developed and reformulated.
Earlier research on regional development, political economy and Amazonian resource extraction expanded toward questions of public policy, organizations, natural-resource governance and society–nature relations. International projects introduced comparative perspectives on mining, environmental intervention, sustainability and global raw-material relations, while more recent research connects these trajectories to climate adaptation, coastal resilience, gender and collective organization, regional innovation and municipal planning.
The relationship between these projects and Regional Development in World Society is therefore neither linear nor one of retrospective theoretical continuity. Earlier projects generated empirical observations and conceptual problems that later became relevant to the development of RWS, while current projects provide new empirical settings through which elements of the theoretical programme can be examined and critically developed.
Across these research trajectories, a persistent question provides continuity:
How do global transformations acquire regionally specific forms, and how do the resulting configurations shape the possibilities and limits of development?