Abstract EN:

This thesis analyses the history of the exploitation of natural resources in brazilian amazonia to understand a social relation which has developed in the midst of the development history of this region - the aviamento - and the meaning of the creation of extractive reserves (reservas extrativistas) in this socio-economic frame. Aviamento consists of the supplying of commodities on credit against a payment in kind. It permits the financing of a productive activity either at its inception or to keep it in production. The creation of a compulsory exchange between a producer and his creditor leads to lasting labour immobilization which benefits the person who controls access to the commodities. According to the degree of constraints exerted upon the debtor by the creditor, three versions of aviamento are distinguished: strong, intermediate or weak. Aviamento by its typical features is a specific process of bonding recently analysed as a "paternalist mode of exploitation" where the concept of the debt is fictitious. Still, the domination of the creditor-merchant comes from the producer's indebtedness whose product is the sole security of his debt. The credit, commodity and product-interlinked markets bypass the monetary system without however eliminating the money concept nor the idea of a repayable debt. However intense his productive effort is, the producer can never repay his debt in this forced commerce. If isolation is a sufficient condition for such commerce to be established, the difficulty of producers in facing price fluctuations is a necessary and sufficient condition. The forward thrust of colonisation disintegrated the aviamento and the creation of extractive reserves (inventive access to resources and sustainable management) marks a new trend in the history of the region since the colonial period began as it always considered the region as an inexhaustible stock of resources, at first human, then natural exploited without change in successive cycles.