Na frente os cargueiros, no chão a soja, atrás o Matopiba e no subsolo a serpente: uma análise pluriescalar das relações multiespécie a partir da Resex Tauá-Mirim

Abstract

This thesis analyzes territorial and epistemological conflicts in the state of Maranhão from two interconnected fronts: the struggle for the official recognition of the Tauá-Mirim Extractive Reserve (Resex), in São Luís, and the expansion of the Matopiba agricultural frontier in the southern region of the state. Based on a multispecies ethnography, it seeks to understand how humans and non-humans—traditional communities, plants, rivers, animals, and invisible organisms—participate in the production of territories, revealing forms of resistance and reconfiguration in the face of colonial and capitalist forces. The methodology combined bibliographical and documentary research with fieldwork conducted in Taim and on a soybeanproducing farm in the municipality of Açailândia, involving interviews and participant observation. The dialogue with authors such as Anna Tsing and Antônio Bispo dos Santos broadened the analytical perspective toward ways of knowing that recognize life in its plurality and reject the exclusive centrality of the human. The results indicate that, in Taim, labor is a collective practice linked to social and multispecies dimensions, whereas in Matopiba, soybean production pursues alienation and proves vulnerable to non-human agents, such as the nematodes that trigger the phenomenon known as “mad soybean.” These elements reveal that capital expansion never unfolds linearly but rather through resistance, instability, and friction. The study concludes that the officialization of the Tauá-Mirim Resex is not merely a legal instrument but a political act affirming ways of life and worldviews not subordinated to mercantile logic. Ultimately, the thesis argues that Maranhão should be conceived and envisioned not merely as a space of extraction, but as a territory of invention—of possible and ancestral futures.