Entre a cidade e a mina: direito à cidade e produção do espaço em Itabira (MG)

Abstract

This dissertation investigates how neo-extractivist mining shapes the production of urban space in Itabira (MG). It also examines the effectiveness of the right to the city, understood as one of the most neglected human rights. Drawing on the theoretical contributions of Henri Lefebvre, David Harvey, and Milton Santos, the research analyzes space as a social production and a field of dispute, marked by contradictions between use value and exchange value, and between lived space and space conceived through the technical rationality of mining. The study examines the implementation of the “Mar de Lama Nunca Mais” Law and its limits in the face of regulatory capture and economic dependence. Using a qualitative approach—combining case study, oral history, interviews, document analysis, and direct observation—the research demonstrates how the extractivist model generates territorial inequalities, precarization, and displacement. At the same time, it reveals insurgent practices, mobilizations, and forms of resistance that affirm the territory as a place of memory, life, and the reivindication of the right to the city.