This study investigates the urban impacts of the installation and operation of the Cargill
terminal in Santarém, Pará (Brazil), focusing on the socio-environmental transformations
resulting from this intervention and the lived experiences of the city’s residents. The research
emerged from an ethnographic approach initiated in 2017, aiming to understand changes in
urban landscapes through the narratives of residents who, prior to the terminal’s installation,
lived in the former Vera Paz beach area and were displaced to the current Laguinho
neighborhood. From this perspective, the study reflects on the effects of the eradication of this
leisure and sociability space, expanding the analysis to the economic dynamics of
agribusiness, the expansion of soy monoculture, and the impacts of large infrastructure
projects. Based on a qualitative methodology, the research employs oral narratives, life
histories, interviews, poems, songs, and document analysis to explore how the transformations
caused by the Cargill terminal have shaped new forms of sociability and resistance. The
dissertation interrogates how processes of economic exploitation reshape urban and
environmental dynamics, addressing not only economic consequences but also impacts on the
"sensible" (affective, sensory, and symbolic dimensions) and the subjectivities of residents.
The study also highlights the reconfiguration of the "sensible," symbolized by the
disappearance of the former Vera Paz beach, and how this represents an infringement on the
right to the city. It reveals an acceleration of socio-environmental violence, rendered invisible
by mainstream media, and proposes an interdisciplinary lens for analyzing urban issues in the
Amazon, integrating emotional and cultural dimensions often neglected in such debates.
Ultimately, this work aims to pave the way for deeper investigations into Amazonian
landscapes and the new forms of struggle and belonging emerging from these
socio-environmental conflicts.
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