Digital Frontiers of Land: Social and Environmental Justice and the New Mechanisms of Land and Green Grabbing in Southern Piauí

• Grant number: 25/05251-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: January 01, 2027
• End date: December 31, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Geography - Human Geography
• Principal Investigator: Samuel Frederico
• Grantee: Samuel Frederico
• Host Investigator: Erika Robb Larkins
• Host Institution: Instituto de Geociências e Ciências Exatas (IGCE). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Rio Claro. Rio Claro , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: San Diego State University, United States

Abstract

This research project aims to analyze the dynamics of land and green grabbing in southern Piauí, emphasizing their implications for social and environmental justice. The study seeks to understand how technical systems, such as the Land Management System (SIGEF) and the Rural Environmental Registry System (SICAR), can paradoxically exacerbate inequalities in access to land and natural resources. The goal is to explore how digital land and environmental regularization practices affect how traditional communities-often marginalized and excluded from land governance-use their territories. In addition to a literature review, the research will include the development of cartographic databases to illustrate the overlaps between rural properties, Legal Reserves, and community territories. The discussion will focus on how these technical systems, instead of mitigating inequalities, may serve as instruments for perpetuating and deepening historical disparities in land access, favoring private interests over collective rights.