Abstract
This article offers a review of the economic history of the Amazon region, focusing on the transformations in the local productive forces during moments of conflict between the local fractions of the capital, the labor force, and the Amazonian biome. The article mobilizes the concept of socio-spatial formation suggesting directions to overcome the limitations present in the Marxist critique offered by the critical geography scholarship about the role of space in the dialectic between productive forces, relations of production and the application of Fernand Braudel method of analysis. The article argues that the accumulation of learning about the management of the Amazonian biome inserted in a production structure primarily devoted to extractivism determined the paths available for the transformation of the elements of the regional productive forces. The article argues this deterministic process operates in a structural condition that continues shaping the possible routes for the development of Amazon region.
Keywords:
socio-spatial formation of the Amazon region; colonial period of Amazon region; land use patterns