Fictitious commodities and the reorganization of Amazonian space: the role of public credit in Brazil from a Polanyian-ecological perspective

Abstract

This article examines the role of Banco da Amazônia and the Northern Constitutional Financing Fund (FNO) in the reorganization of Brazilian Amazonian space through a Polanyian lens. It argues that these institutions should not be understood solely as mechanisms of financial intermediation or regional development promotion, but as state mediations that articulate two closely connected fictitious commodities: money-credit and land. Based on a historical reconstruction of Amazonian credit institutions between 1942 and 1989 and an empirical analysis of the recent phase of the FNO between 2017 and 2024, the article explores the structural tension shaping regional credit in the Brazilian Amazon. On the one hand, the FNO channels public resources into a region historically marked by territorial inequalities; on the other, it contributes to making specific productive uses of land financially viable. The article argues that this form of state intervention does not merely correct regional imbalances but also participates in the reorganization of Amazonian space under new forms of the commodification of nature.