The ribeirinho territory and reprimarization of açaí: The case of the floodplain of Abaetetuba (PA)

Abstract

This paper discusses the aspects of ribeirinho territoriality of Abaetetuba in the Brazilian state of Pará, focusing on the production of açaí (Euterpe oleracea) in Abaetetuba municipality, considering the importance of açaí as the food base of the ribeirinho dwellers, as well as its consumption at various scale levels. The research aims to analyze the municipality’s ribeirinho territoriality in terms of the insertion of açaí in the logic of reprimarization of the local economy. Fifteen interviews were conducted with people who work daily in the links of the açaí production chain in the months of July and August 2021, in order to identify the current productive reality of the fruit, in face of the trend of incrementing both the demand and the pressure exerted on the floodplain to guarantee supply. The research shows that the environmental awareness does not reach homogeneously the agents that act in the links of the chains, but that there is a significant distancing on the part of those who do not live on the local space. The ribeirinho dwellers themselves show this awareness, but there is an appropriation of açaí’s ancestral relations by neoextractivism, and this maintains the monocultural trend of the fruit, considering that this strategy tends to minimize the possibilities of conflict for the use of ribeirinho territory, because it was implemented through a productive activity of ancestral nature, thus maintaining the unequal relations that reprimarization needs to consolidate itself in the floodplain of Abaetetuba.

Keywords: Territory; ribeirinhos; açaí; reprimarization of the economy; Abaetetuba.