FRONTIER REVISITED

Abstract

This work, from a critical point of view, identified with the Marxian political economy, aims to discuss and address the central ideas that permeate the work Frontier of the Brazilian sociologist José de Souza Martins. Based on Marxian dialectical method, it proposes to analyze and, at the same time, establish a dialogue with the author in order to show that the frontier is the place of conflict, of otherness, of inhuman, of liminarity. It starts with the hypothesis that the work in question has enormous theoretical and conceptual richness, and therefore, it is necessary a reading with the purpose to understand how the capitalist process reappears, for example, in forms of labor analogous to slavery, and clarify the differences between expansion front and pioneer front. Thus, we aim to contribute to the study of frontier considering the need to understand the actions of certain particular agents (peasants, indigenous capitalists, workers) in the socioeconomic field.