“TRANSAMAZÔNICA: O CAMINHO DO HOMEM”: DITADURA MILITAR, PROPAGANDA E PROJETO DE URBANISMO RURAL EM UM RECÔNDITO DA AMAZÔNIA

Abstract

The article analyzes the construction of the Transamazonian Highway and the colonization projects in the Amazon region between Altamira and Medicilândia, in southwestern Pará, during the military dictatorship in Brazil. It explores how government propaganda, especially in the 1970s, encouraged migration to the region, presenting it as a solution to crises in the Northeast and the exclusion of farmers in the South. The article demonstrates how the Transamazonian Highway was promoted as a symbol of a "New Brazil," offering land and work, although the reality was marked by a lack of infrastructure and adverse conditions. Based on documents from the National Archives and the book Urbanismo Rural by José Geraldo da Cunha Camargo, the study engages with the theories of Agamben and Foucault. It examines how the dictatorship shaped colonization through technocratic strategies, disregarding local specificities, and analyzes the role of propaganda and "rural urbanism" in constructing a state of necessity to legitimize the project and exercise social control over society.