Researchers

Diana Aguiar is a postdoctoral researcher in the Graduate Program of Social Sciences in Development, Agriculture and Society (CPDA) at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRRJ). Diana is a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from the Institute of Urban and Regional Research and Planning (IPPUR) at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), with a research period at the Center for Higher Amazonian Studies (NAEA / UFPA). She has a master’s degree in International Relations from PUC-Rio (2008), with a research period at Brown University (USA). Since May 2020, she is an Advisor to the National Campaign in Defense of the Cerrado. Between 2008 and 2020, she was an advisor and researcher in several social organizations, such as FASE – Solidarity and Education and the Transnational Institute (TNI).

With a research agenda located at the interface between the agrarian question and political ecology, in recent years I have analyzed territorial tensions in the Cerrado and other savannas, especially in Mozambique, as well as in the Cerrado-Amazon transition, resulting from processes of production and circulation of agrifood commodities. My research agenda focus on soy logistical infrastructure, China’s infrastructure geopolitics, the expansion of the agricultural frontier towards the Cerrado in Matopiba and Legal Amazon regions, deforestation as an instrument of land grabbing and marketization of land and the insertion of Brazil in the corporate agrifood regime.

Palavras-chave: agrifood commodities, Cerrado, deforestation, land grabbing, logistics