Corporate use of the territory and circuits of the urban economy: franchise networks in the state of Alagoas

• Grant number: 23/05132-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: January 01, 2025
• End date: June 30, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Geography - Human Geography
• Principal Investigator: María Mónica Arroyo
• Grantee: Clevisson José da Silva
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 25/06859-0 - Corporate use of territory and urban economy: the expansion of franchise networks in Brazil and Portugal, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

The current period has allowed the diffusion of profound transformations in economic relations, bringing about the emergence of even more activities and branches of business articulated to the global capitalist order. In this context, franchising presents itself as an important form of expression of commerce, constituting a system through countless networks of franchisors that incorporate different levels of innovation in the search for market sustainability. It is a business model of American origin, which has expanded in Brazil since the 1980s and has achieved acceptance in the domestic market because of its lower risk. Thus, the present project aims to investigate the uses of territory by franchise networks in the state of Alagoas and its imbrications with the urban economy circuits. To this end, the proposed study is carried out through an analytical research on the theme, where the scientific development of the work tends to seek a path conducive to understanding and interpreting reality through a methodology supported by bibliographic, documentary and field research. As the main frame of reference we adopt the concept of territory used, which allows a reading of the world consistent with its real picture from the uses that different agents undertake in the territory (such as the State, the companies, the population); and the theory of circuits of urban economy, which highlights the existence of upper, upper marginal and lower circuits, each of them hosting individual economic practices, although participating in the same process, and which differ according to different levels of organization, capital, technology and labor.