Água em meio urbano, favelas nas cabeceiras

Abstract

The current environmental crisis of Brazilian cities includes two historically neglected factors, which recently are gaining priority in public policy: favelas and urban waters. This doctoral thesis discusses the dialectical relationship between these factors in the political economy of the cities, drawing on the empirical context of the city of Belo Horizonte and, more specifically, of the Arrudas River watershed. The mapping of the dynamics of favelas on that territory shows their relationship with the waterways: at first they settle in valley floors, and then gradually movetoward the headwaters, always driven by the opportunities for survival that the transit between urbanized and non-urbanized areas offers. From a critical theory framework, the first chapter discusses the ideal of domination of nature characteristic of modern instrumental rationality, which has increasingly stressed the alienation of men from each other, from their productive activities, and from inner and outer nature. It thenanalyzes some consequences of this logic for urban water management in Belo Horizonte over the twentieth century, also addressing its omissions, i. e., spaces that had not been affected by such management, and that usually coincide with favelas. The following chapters aim to understand the development of favelas in Belo Horizonte, drawing from Marxs critique and its corollary in the political economy of urbanization. From the perspective of the social production of urban space under capitalism, this thesis analyzes the processes that had shaped favelas and the formal city on the territory, as well as their overlaps and interdependencies. It seeks to understand the contradictions that had first created favelas and now create colossal public works in them, advertised as measures of social and environmental recovery. Finally, the last chapters discuss ongoing public policies that, despite having different aims, are both having an impact on Belo Horizontes favelas: the municipal programs Vila Viva and Drenurbs. In opposition to these programs, this thesis proposes a processes of social and environmental recovery starting with autonomous territorial micro-units. This process, named reverse urbanization, affords a glimpse of reconciliation between men and nature in the cities, even if they are still part of a heteronomous social order.