Land-grabbing mafias and dispossession in the Brazilian Amazon: rural–urban land speculation and deforestation in the Santarém region

This article explores the ways that illegal land grabbing has taken place in contemporary Brazil since 2003. The findings suggest that much more attention needs to be paid to the various forms of violent illegalities behind the creation of land control, in both urban and rural contexts. The role of land mafias as a key political-economic sector creating capital through land speculation should be investigated further, as it seems to matter even more than de jure land rights. The article studies how, where, and why land mafias - often an amalgamation of rural elites, police, and governmental and judicial powerholders - have surged. It uses longitudinal ethnography to explore the widespread expulsion of people from their land in the Brazilian Amazon after the 2003 installation of a Cargill soybean export mill. This has led to the radical transformation of vast forest and urban areas, destroying the lives of humans and other-than-humans.