The advance of financial funds over infrastructure-type geographical objects concessions: new uses of territory aligned with financialization

• Grant number: 23/06942-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate (Direct)
• Start date: November 01, 2023
• End date: September 30, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Geography - Human Geography
• Principal Investigator: Fabrício Gallo
• Grantee: Bruno Moreira Riani Costa
• Host Institution: Instituto de Geociências e Ciências Exatas (IGCE). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Rio Claro. Rio Claro , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 25/00747-6 - A critical re-examination of valorization of space and financialization: towards a new theoretical framework for understanding evolving territorial dynamics, BE.EP.DD

Abstract

Financial funds can be considered key actors of our historical period: their actions have contributed to expanding the boundaries of financialization, subjecting various economic activities to the yoke of financial capital. Our preliminary investigations for this project have allowed us to glimpse an increasing participation of these institutional investors in public infrastructure concessions. In this sense, it is worth mentioning that the set of geographic fixed assets comprising what is referred to as infrastructure corresponds to a fundamental element of the contemporary geographical environment, playing a central role in the dynamics of various socio-spatial formations. We have found that this participation of institutional investors in public infrastructure concessions occurs both directly (through concession management) and indirectly (through financing via the capital market), and is increasing in both cases. Therefore, we intend to further investigate the underlying logics behind this increasing participation of funds in the sector and the implications of this process on socio-spatial dynamics, analyzing what we consider to be an expression of new uses of territory under financializaion. This is a hypothesis to be sustained throughout the development of the current research. More specifically, the hypothesis is that infrastructure-type geographic fixed assets have assumed a new predominant function as they become the basis for income generation for the financial agents that control them, representing a specific form of valorization of space. Along the course of this work, we also aim to construct an argumentative framework that highlights the importance of the topic and an approach to it through Geography. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

COSTA, BRUNO MOREIRA RIANI. Value and Valorisation of Space: Notes for a Debate on Critical Geography. ANTIPODE, v. 56, n. 5, p. 19-pg., 2024-04-04. (22/03409-6, 23/06942-0, 21/05752-7)