INFRASTRUCTURE-TYPE GEOGRAPHIC OBJECTS: large technical systems and their use as a way of valorization

Abstract

Infrastructure-type geographic objects correspond to a fundamental element of the contemporary geographic milieu. This article discusses some of the specificities of this type of geographic objects. To do so, we approximate the concept of economic infrastructure to the notion of technical macrosystems. We understand that both terms refer to large engineering systems that enable the operation of activities and the provision of services, allowing the proper functioning of the economic and social dynamics of a given portion of space. Also, we mobilized categories of Marxist political economy to understand how this set of geographical objects, more than acting as part of the general conditions of production, can also be constituted as a means of valorization, which occurs through its use as a specific type of fixed capital: the immobilized fixed capital of an independente kind, which we understand to correspond to a particular form of valorization of space.