Modernização no Planalto Central do Brasil: mineração e logística no Roteiro da Missão Cruls

Abstract

The Brazilian territorial formation process had, and still have, the mining as a fundamental agent of its frontier formation and modernization of the territory, above all at Roteiro da Missão Cruls, this work spatial profile. The mineral resource exploration on the territory was stimulated by the State in determined historical period, following the demands of the era’s method of production. Such demands keep renovating itself along the historical process, either by the new mineral ores explored, either by the new exploration technologies, either by the deep transformations created and still in creation in terms of territorial dynamic in each period. Strategic minerals like gold, copper, niobium, nickel and zinc, through new technologies, get featured in global scenery for being necessary on the manufacture of indispensable materials used on the modern societies. In this work, we seek to defend the area as geostrategic region utilized by the Brazilian State, even if not with an administrative character, aiming to guarantee the territorial and internal market unit. The relations between State and transnationals are also altered in the search for control of the national and international markets against the new faces of the capital. Thanks to its location and the constant disputes between local elites, the region of Roteiro da Missão Cruls gets in the highlights also as a logistic zone, where great State projects, designed in the XIX century, currently materialize, in order to supply the demands originated from the hegemonic method of production guarantying competitive conditions for the emprises installed in Brazilian territory. In this direction, there is an intrinsic relation between mining and logistics to comply with the new dynamics of the capitalist method of production, guarantying to Brazil its place on the world-economy.