Award-winning theses defended at the Geosciences Institute are related to the pre-salt and the use of wind energy in the Brazilian semi-arid region
Two theses defended in the Postgraduate Program in Geography at the Geosciences Institute at Unicamp were awarded the III Rodrigo Simões Doctoral Thesis Award, promoted by the National Association of Postgraduate Studies and Research in Urban and Regional Planning (ANPUR). The winning thesis was “Oil productive spatial circuit in the Santos Basin and the political economy of the Baixada Santista Metropolitan Region”, defended by Luciano Pereira Duarte Silva, under the guidance of professor Márcio Antonio Cataia. The thesis "Accumulation through dispossession: the privatization of winds for the production of wind energy in the Brazilian semiarid", defended by Mariana Traldi, under the guidance of professor Arlete Moysés Rodrigues, received an honorable mention. The two works were chosen from among 33 entries for the Prize , which seeks to encourage supervised intellectual production in the area of urban and regional planning.
Winning Thesis
According to the jury chairman, the winning thesis was chosen based on the topic covered, the theoretical-methodological framework and the excellent final quality of the text. According to Luciano Pereira, “the research analyzed how the transformations in the oil productive spatial circuit, resulting from the pre-salt discoveries (2007), especially in the Santos Basin, provoked the mobilization of several agents in the Metropolitan Region of Baixada Santista (RMBS) in order to bring about various socio-spatial modifications that aimed to adapt the material, economic and social bases of this region to the imperatives of large companies linked to the circuit in question”. Agents related to oil exploration and production activities, such as Petrobras, began to settle in the region with greater intensity. As a result, several articulations occurred in the area of urban planning, resulting in the conception of a large set of infrastructure projects, led by Petrobras.
With the research, it was possible to observe that the initiatives to adapt the space to receive agents and productive activities linked to the stages of oil exploration and production in the RMBS were not fully implemented mainly due to the political crisis that affects the Brazilian socio-spatial formation. “The main agent mobilizing spatial transformations in RMBS, Petrobras, reduced the expansion of its actions in the region, thus weakening the coordination circles mobilized and articulated with local agents that sought to sustain their actions in the cities of Baixada Santista”, describes Luciano. As a result, several projects to adapt the RMBS space did not come to fruition, which did not allow the creation of a national condition for endogenous regional development. Even so, oil exploration in the pre-salt in the Santos Basin is progressing, “which may at some point again demand greater participation from Baixada Santista. However, with less capacity to coordinate this process in the hands of Petrobras, the region finds itself in a situation of greater vulnerability in relation to the rapid global dynamics of the oil market, in addition to deepening a war of places in search of possible investments by companies linked to this sector”, he points out.
Honorable mention
The thesis that received an honorable mention was chosen for its originality and the methodology adopted in the research. According to Mariana Traldi, the research shows how wind generation companies access and control territories with high wind potential in the Brazilian semi-arid region. “Wind energy, in its current form, is emerging as an important ally in the fight against climate change and its use is expanding rapidly. We seek to understand how this process has been developing in Brazil and more specifically in the Brazilian semi-arid region. Our biggest concern concerned the private appropriation of wind and land by wind generation companies,” she says. Another point was to identify the agents involved in this process and the role played by each of them, especially by the Brazilian State. “The research was developed seeking to identify the main contradictions inherent to this process and the links that interconnect the interior of the Brazilian semi-arid region and the entire world”, highlights Mariana.
The study is unprecedented in researching the process of dispossession of wind and land promoted by the wind industry, more specifically by doing so based on the analysis of wind lease contracts, which are difficult to access due to their confidentiality. “Revealing how contracts become formal instruments to promote the dispossession of wind, land and forms of social reproduction that previously existed in the semi-arid region by wind generation companies is certainly one of the most important results of the research developed. Reveal the contradiction that exists between the production of 'clean' energy and the fight against climate change and contractual illegalities, territorial injustices, theft and expropriation of land and rights, land grabbing, dispossession and expropriation of the right to land in the Brazilian hinterland, which occur in many cases with the collusion of state bodies, is certainly another important result of the thesis defended”, points out Mariana. The research also resulted in an x-ray of this geographical situation, identifying local agents, such as land owners and squatters; global agents, such as pension and investment funds, owners of wind farms in Brazil; and the relationships established between these agents and capital flows. “Based on this analysis, we were able to understand the links that exist between the most diverse geographic scales, identifying which companies and financial institutions appropriate the profits obtained from Brazilian wind generation”, he concludes.
Awards
According to professor Rafael Straforini, coordinator of PPG-Geography, this is the first time that the Program has received the award. “This is recognition of the quality of the research carried out at the master's and doctoral level, highlighting the excellence of its supervisors, students, research groups and the institutional conditions for carrying out the research. In some way, these awards reveal to us that we are on the right path and motivate us even more to always seek excellence in the development of research and commitment to the production of geographic knowledge. This knowledge is extremely important for understanding current territorial dynamics, as well as for evaluating current public policies and planning policies that can mitigate the socio-spatial impacts of such territorial dynamics, especially for the most vulnerable social groups”, he states.
For professor Márcio Cataia, who supervised the winning thesis, “the award crowns the serious research work we have been carrying out in the Territorial Political Economy Research Group (GEPOT). Luciano's merit is very clear, and as he always highlighted and I reinforce, without the support of Fapesp, our PPG and the conditions provided by our Institute (IG), we would hardly have had this result. The important and rich history of our young University – young with a unique history of awards – has an intellectual weight that positively influences the way we produce our work”.
For Mariana Traldi, the honorable mention is a recognition of the quality of the research developed. “It is an honor and pride to receive an honorable mention from ANPUR, which is a recognized association that brings together postgraduate programs and Brazilian entities from the most diverse areas of knowledge that develop teaching and research in the field of urban and regional studies and planning urban and regional. In other words, this is an important award not only in the field of Geography, but also in social sciences, applied social sciences, among other areas of knowledge”, he concludes.
In 2020, Unicamp's PPG-Geography had already received an Honorable Mention in the 2020 Capes Thesis Award, with the study “Spatialization and geochronology of surface coverage in marine, fluvomarine and fluvial terraces at the mouth of the Itapocu and Araranguá river basins (SC) , resulting from episodes of marine transgressions and regressions associated with climate oscillations/pulsations”, by Felipe Gomes Rubira under the guidance of professor Archimedes Perez Filho.
