The Geography of Commerce in Palmas-Tocantins

The book is divided into four chapters: the first provides a conceptual discussion of geography and territory based on historical materialism, as well as territory and commercial relations and power; the second presents the process of territorialization of the wholesale trade in Palmas-TO and the geography of the Atacadao, Makro and Assai/Extra commercial groups, based on the geo-history of the companies; the third, through interviews with former traders in Palmas, describes the power of the wholesale trade in Palmas and the clash with local commerce since its arrival and discusses the importance and power of commerce in the organization of the territory; the fourth, also through interviews with company employees, sought to survey the relations between capital and labour in the wholesale trade in Palmas and the process of controlling the territory from the workers' way of life. The main result was that commercial companies use the power of capital to exploit their employees' labor power in order to build their "geography of places".