Presentation short abstract

In my presentation, I shed light on how sugarcane agribusiness' metabolic arrangements prompted an ongoing extended urbanization process. Through the metaphor of the scattered machine, I sketch the emergence of the networked infrastructures and mechanisms of extraction deriving from that process.

Presentation long abstract

When Columbus introduced sugarcane to the Americas, nobody could have imagined that this plant would one day be processed to fuel millions of Brazilian cars, creating a region three times bigger than Catalunya. Ironically, the processing of sugarcane –biophysically speaking– has not changed. The stalks are washed, crushed, and cooked just the same. What changed were the metabolic arrangements: The plantation evolved into a trans-scalar extraction process driven by agribusiness; the exploitation of workers –both human and non-human– shifted from the body to the region; time synchronized to the demands of consumption rather than reproduction; and entire strips of land were transformed into uninhabitable sacrifice zones, or captured for the sustenance of the business. What was once a local process, product of the Triangular Trade, has turned into a scattered machine whose only purpose is harnessing life to produce sugar.

Today, Brazil is the epicenter of sugarcane. Historically, the country has endorsed a series of policies that have created structural conditions for the business to thrive. What is striking about this is that they embody specific nature-society relations that seek to replicate fossil capitalism in the fields. This occurs through what I call metabolic systems and socio-ecological regimes. By looking at these, I shed light on how sugarcane agribusiness' metabolic arrangements prompted an ongoing extended urbanization process. Through the metaphor of the scattered machine, I sketch the emergence of networked infrastructures as well as particular mechanisms of extraction responsible for the landscapes nobody could have thought of back in 1493.