As paisagens minerárias como lugar de disputa: o caso do reassentamento de Bento Rodrigues

Abstract

Almost 8 years have passed since the rupture of the Fundão dam, which, in November 2015, released over 40 million cubic meters of tailings into the Rio Doce Basin, destroying communities such as Bento Rodrigues, Paracatu de Baixo, and Gesteira. In 2016, based on an agreement signed between Samarco/Vale/BHP, the Brazilian government, and the states of Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo, the Renova Foundation was established. This entity is responsible for managing repair programs across the entire affected territory. Since then, and under a series of violations, an intense dispute for the right to reparation of the communities has unfolded in various fields. In this context, the research aims to investigate the dynamics behind the resettlement of Bento Rodrigues and how the landscape of this new place is produced from the contradictions and antagonisms integrated into the practices and representations of various actors over the territory. To achieve this, the praxiological method, adopted by Bourdieu, was employed. This method starts with the analysis of social space through the combination of its objective and phenomenological dimensions. Thus, through a multidisciplinary analysis with theoretical contributions from diverse fields, such as political ecology and landscape philosophy, and materials primarily collected from newspapers, the research focuses on the analysis of socio-spatial practices of three main actors: mining companies, the people affected by the tailings, and the architects responsible for the housing projects in the under-construction districts. The investigation into landscapes and how they are contested through power dynamics established over the territory aims to shed light on the spatial policies behind the new processes of territorialization emerging in the context of environmental crisis.