Fronteira, redes ilegais e segurança pública no Extremo-Oeste do Paraná (Brasil) limítrofe ao Extremo-Leste dos departamentos de Alto Paraná e Canindeyú (Paraguai), 1980 a 2018

Abstract

The research shows that in the context of the far west Paraná and the far east of Alto Paraná and Canindeyú transformations in the occupied space and socioeconomic changes contributed, in part, to the structuring of illegal networks which today go beyond the border scales. In that perspective, the 1980s marked the landmark for the proliferation of illegal networks, especially after the construction of Itaipu Binacional and its reservoir. This huge construction, along with the International Friendship Bridge (Brazil - Paraguay), built in the 1960s, and also with the Ayrton Senna Interstate Bridge (Paraná - Southern Mato Grosso), built in 1996, are structures that facilitated cross-border mobility of both people and merchandise and, consequently, facilitated illegal economic activities, making of this border segment one of the five most dangerous in Latin America. Geography theory was applied to achieve the purpose of the analysis, focusing especially on political geography, which works with analytical categories, such as territory, border, State, and network, among others related to the developed study. In this regard, the paper shows that the border segment analyzed has been indicated as a tense geographic area between the State and the powers parallelly linked to the central power, putting in jeopardy the control over the territory.