Mason Mathews is a visiting professor in the Geography Department at Florida State University. He graduated from the University of Florida’s Interdisciplinary Ecology doctoral program (Human Geography) and worked extensively with UF’s Center for Latin American Studies. Mason is interested in social networks and social capital theories and methods and how they can be combined with geographic information systems to understand how communities and individuals respond to social, economic, and environmental shocks. Mason spent seven years living, working, and conducting research in Latin America. This includes experiences in Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Brazil.

In the Brazilian Amazon, the long-distance river trading system known as aviamento has linked commodity producers in remote areas to markets in urban centers since the colonial period. Geographic isolation and seasonal productive needs continued people’s dependence on river traders in 2008–2009, but they had greater choices due to increased access to information, mobility, and alternate markets. Expanded citizenship rights provided access to the vote and to education and other government services, but in a “differentiated” manner that still excluded many rural Amazonians. Given that agroindustry is currently the economic focus for Amazonian development, instead of forest product extraction, these rural producers continued to be forced to rely on informal river traders to meet their needs.

This talk will be followed by a no-host social hour from 4:45-6:00 p.m. at Proof at the FSU Student Union.