The Construction of the RILA between Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Paraguay and the New Land Uses in the Municipality of Porto Murtinho, Brazil

Abstract

In the last decades, South American countries have forged an integration agenda that has provided a new sub-regional strategic vision, based on strategic infrastructure networks. Although this agenda has not shown a continuous implementation, the construction of the RILA (Latin American Integration Route), which will connect south-central Brazil, Paraguay, northern Argentina and northern Chile, has been an important subregional political link. Through linking the dynamic economic regions with Chilean ports, RILA will not only boost the flow of regional production to Asian and American markets, but will also stimulate trading, investment and people flows at the sub-regional level. However this route will also cross through less dynamic regions, such as the Brazilian Border Strip. Thereby the socioeconomic transformations derived from the implementation of RILA at different scales are identified. Using the scales analysis of power and management allow both to identify these transformations and to relate them to different agents and actors. In the case of the municipality of Porto Murtinho, in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, located in the Brazilian Border Strip, the overlapping of interests from different agents and actors has imposed new uses on the territory. However, there is a little participation of the local scale in these new territorial dynamics.