Mato Grosso do Sul no início do século XXI: entre transições e permanências

The territory of Mato Grosso, divided in 1979 to form the federal state of Mato Grosso do Sul, was for decades the reference point for the identity of the latter, invariably confused either due to outdated information or similarities, as there were few differences between the ‘distant’ Midwest, even though its first urban centres were already recorded in the 18th century. Mato Grosso do Sul, land of yerba mate and extensive cattle ranching, became known in the late 1970s for its meat-grain chain, with the expansion of wheat, soybeans and corn, associated with the herds of the plateau, the cattle fields and the Pantanal wetlands of Mato Grosso do Sul. The meat-grain binomial was significantly altered by the speed of globalisation, which transformed the platinum frontier erected on supposed boundaries that gradually became border areas. The international border was occupied by an urban phenomenon known as ‘twin cities’ and, more recently, the integration proposal has been updated with the initiative to build the Bioceanic Corridor, which gives the southern Mato Grosso do Sul territory a border identity. What seemed, in a way, ‘homogeneous’ has been revealed to be full of differences by various studies from the UFGD Postgraduate Programme in Geography, whose area of concentration is precisely ‘Regional Space Production and Borders’. This text presents some characteristics of the transition underway in several aspects: from a predominantly primary-export economy to the emergence of agro-industrialisation strongly anchored in natural resources, with diversified animal protein, consisting of cattle, pigs, poultry and fish; transition from local and regional capital groups to the presence of international corporations; activities in the sugar-energy sector; exports that include trade in captive fish, variety in the biofuel chain, with production of corn ethanol and the pulp economic complex, in addition to the recent location of data centres in the south of the state. Contrary to national deindustrialisation, industry is expanding its share of state GDP, and all this is happening alongside ongoing land conflicts, the precarious social reproduction of indigenous peoples, and migration, which has historically been from Paraguay and, more recently, from Haiti and Venezuela, as well as the strengthening of border practices. This text highlights processes of transition and continuity based on research carried out by the Postgraduate Programme in Geography at UFGD and a review of the literature and primary and secondary data.