The study of the opposition between the two micro-local areas testifies to the difficult structural process of the frontier areas. This process is always changing: shifts in populations and land concentration movements.
West of Altamira, the 75 South by-road is fully-occupied, mainly by humble families which have access to the local market of the urban center which is located of 40km from the most remote families. A majority of destitute families are subordinate to patrons or shopkeepers.
Despite the fact that the settlements occurred at the same time in the two sub-regions east and west of Altamira, the circumstances and rate of the appropriation and development process of the micro-local areas are different. The higher exchange value of the selected crops, the proximity of the markets account for these differences. But beyond economic reasons, let us underline essential sociological reasons, too.
West of Altamira, the trade system is issued from a combination of inner and inter family networks that have developed specific fields of intervention and favored access to the markets.
The commercial and productive functions of the members of a large-scale family network are clearly assigned. Some buy, other ones transport products and the latter are in charge of the manufacturing. This combination of activities also reflects the organization within production units and complement one another in this area. Some develop cattle-breeding, others develop continual food crops and both are more or less far from the Transamazonian road. There is no clash of interests within the family networks. A family will be in charge of the husking of rice while another one will supply industrialized products, or trade agricultural products.
This community network of closed interdependences strike up the commercial relationships with the local tradesmen and keeps them there. In this acceptation, settlers are not isolated, they join family networks.
The former pioneers of these family networks have strengthened their position. They occupy a third of the land pieces of the area. The schematic view of the South 75 by-road depicts these lands in red, green and blue colors (picture 8). The other land pieces illustrate land exploitation and are depicted in yellow, red/green, and pink. Their grouping reflects the patriarchal system, which often combines land exploitation with a patrimonial strategy of territorial management. Subsequently to the appropriation process of the lands by which his children inherited, the patriarch is now retired or is intending to retire. His sons and daughters’ behaviors are now going to regulate the management of the territory. These latter seem to be more and more involved in the cooperative process subsequent to the widening of dynamic family strategies.
East of Altamira, social conflicts add further to the poverty of the majority of the families. The study of the by-road 100km south of Altamira, is very similar to the studies of Roberto Araujo (an anthropologist) and Jacky Picard (a socio-geographer). The patriarchal system predominates, inducing relationships of subordination. The land ownership or agricultural program has been set up to the detriment of minor projects of development.
None of the big families of settlers has ever established a network of multidisciplinary competences. The unsettled pattern of the pioneers’ projects depends on their means of production (financial means and labor force) and accounts for the present situation. Individual strategies of land appropriation predominate. The small settlers are subordinate to their patron’s interests. Their patron is either a shopkeeper involved in farming activities or a cattle-breeder (fazendeiro). Even if they choose to rely on their own production and land pieces, they still have to rely on retailers and on the only transporter of agricultural products and people.
The small patrons (cattle-breeders and retailers) rely on associations of producers to be granted credits and to employ agricultural workers. The association sometimes succeeds in challenging the tradesman and transporter on whom everyone relies.
To summarize, along the by-road situated west of the territory, the main question is: Will families issued from the patriarchal system subsequently be able to set up collective or municipality projects? Along the eastern by-road, the question is about the widening of exploitation projects and the setting up of local activities, which complement one another.
In actual fact, the difficulty to set up collective projects in the sub-regions reflects individual and family strategies as well, as shown in the study of the micro-local areas. The study at different geographical levels, of the changing role of actors involved in commercial and territorial network, enables us to understand better the structuring process of the Transamazonian territory and to imagine prospects for the future. But an unanswered question remains: Will the new generation of inhabitants of the frontier zones be interested in setting up the project of a rural society?
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