Promoção de saúde em contextos de mineração: um estudo das ações realizadas pelo Movimento pela Soberania Popular na MIneração no estado de Minas Gerais

Abstract

Minas Gerais (MG) was historically constituted with the mining brand. The mineral exploration model in force in the country, undertaken through mega-mining, causes perverse environmental, economic and social effects. The existence of the Movement for Popular Sovereignty in Mining (MAM) is based around the need to discuss this mineral model, its impacts and a new proposition for its format. Assuming the close relationship of these dimensions (environmental, social and economic) with the production and promotion of health, this study aims to understand whether the actions carried out by MAM in its regions of operation, especially considering the state of Minas Gerais, are located to some extent in the theoretical-methodological field of health promotion. This is a qualitative study that consisted of documental research and semi-structured interviews with key informants. For the documentary research, documents in Portuguese available on the MAM website were selected. Under these documents, a pre-analysis was carried out; observing the dimensions of context, authorship, internal logic and key concepts; and later analysis. The interviews took place online, primarily, with those who represent the organization of the movement in Minas Gerais, were guided by a semi-structured script and interpreted under the same logic used in the document analysis. From the analysis of this empirical material, analytical categories emerged referring to the impacts of the mining activity on the mined regions, on the health of the affected populations and on the health of their workers; as well as on the role of MAM in mined regions, which emphatically raises the discussion about the Brazilian mining model from the subordinate and dependent position of Brazil in the world economy. It was found that MAM's actions in its regions of operation consist of mobilizing populations affected or threatened by mining, including workers, around the fight against these impacts from the tripod: organization, training and struggle. In this direction, the militancy for Mining Free Areas stands out, which aims to preserve resources and essential aspects for the protection and promotion of health. While these findings lead us to health promotion from the perspective of its determinants, as it underlines the conditions of existence and factors related to the states of well-being and illness of population segments affected by the mining production chain, the debate about the Brazilian mining model problematizes the production and promotion of health from the prism of its determination, since it highlights the structural cause of the living and health conditions of these population segments, that is, the capitalist economic development model. It was verified that this is also the central discussion of the approach of the social determination of health, which thematizes the existing overlap between health production and promotion and this model of economic development. To face this appropriation, MAM proposes what has proved to be its main mobilizing agenda: Popular Sovereignty in Mining.