Impactos territoriais da criação do assentamento rural Dona Helena-Cruz do Espírito Santo/PB.

Abstract

This study aims to discuss about the social, economic and political transformations arising from the creation of the Dona Helena rural settlement, located in Cruz do Espírito Santo (Paraíba), which is located in the mesoregion of Zona da Mata, a region where traditiona lly predominate a monocultivated production of sugarcane and therefore the large estates. Mesoregion of Zona da Mata always presented the highest rates of concentration of land in the state of Paraiba, reaching the Gini coefficient greater than 0.9 in some municipalities, as an example, Cruz do Espírito Santo. We believe that the rural settlements provide a reorganization of land and it‟s also be able to promote changes in social, economic and political organization of a municipality or a region, which may reflect on the dynamics of local and regional commerce. So, the settlement projects are responsible for new social arrangements and new forms of economic and political integration of social groups. These changes resulting from the creation of rural settlements are understood in this study as territorial impacts. Thus we intend to uncover the potentiality of transformation of the Dona Helena settlement in the municipality in which it is, in the expectation of those changes affect both, the lives of families settled and the areas around the settlement.