This book discusses the outcomes of more than ten years of research in the southern tracts of the Amazon region, and addresses the expansion of the agricultural frontier, consolidation of the agribusiness-based economy, and expansion of regional infrastructure (roads, dams, urban centres, etc).

It combines extensive empirical evidence with the international literature on frontier-making and regional Amazonian development, and adopts a critical politico-geographical perspective that will benefit scholars in various other disciplines.
This book is intended to push the current theoretical and methodological boundaries regarding the controversies and impacts of agribusiness in the region. A new international scientific network, led by the author, is investigating the broader context of the themes analysed here.    

Dr. Antonio Augosto Rossotto Ioris is reader in Human Geography at Cardiff Universitys School of Geography and Planning.

His academic interests are primarily in the political dimension of the interconnections and inter-dependencies between society and the rest of nature. Most of his current research is related to social and environmental justice, the multiple obstacles faced by marginalised groups, and creative responses at different geographical scales. His work is intended to have both academic and more-than-academic relevance and is focused on socio-natural processes, on the political economy of development and environmental regulation, and on governance and politics.

Dr. Ioris has an extensive record of publications on the controversies and impacts of agribusiness in the region, but this book is intended to push the current theoretical and methodological boundaries. He is the leader of a new international scientific network (AgroCultures), which is investigating the broader context of the themes analysed here.

Introduction: Frontier thinking and the Amazon region.- Scarcities and abundances in place and time: A proposed conceptualisation of frontier making.- Placing the agricultural frontier of Mato Grosso, Brazil.- Peasant farming in the Amazon frontiers.- Water and energy frontiers in the Amazon.- Production of poverty and the poverty of production in the Amazon.- Disrupting frontier development from within: The latent geographical agency of indigenous peoples.- Development and conservation frontiers in the Pantanal wetland.- Conclusion: Lessons learned to expand frontier theory.