Memórias de rio e de gente

Abstract

This dissertation, based on ethnographic inspiration, examines the consequences of the disaster caused by the rupture of the Fundão dam over the residents affected in Mariana (Minas Gerais, Brazil), in Bento Rodrigues, Paracatu de Baixo, Paracatu de Cima, Pedras e Campinas. The objective was to understand, taking into account inter-subjective relationships, how the victims are dealing with losses and reconfiguring their memories and social-spatial practices. I first illustrate the contextualization of the municipality in the mining scenario and then describe it inserted in the mining development model. Subsequently, I recall the affectations produced on the residents' lives from the uses of space in the districts and the uses in which they are now subjected in the Mariana city center. The residents had to adapt to temporary spaces and had to translate their ways of life into arenas of negotiation, where, in many ways, they are continuously silenced. In this sense, I emphasize ways of proliferating social suffering (DAS, 1998) and evidence of the manifestation of slow violence (NIXON, 2011) upon them. Finally, I point out emerging forms of resistance and look for approximations between the struggles waged in Mariana and those that take place along the Rio Doce basin. The conclusions point to the ideas that, among the affected subjects, the relations between memory and the lands on which they grew up were built in a Strong and lasting way. If the emergency of the disaster forces those affected to reconfigure their practices and restore the ladscape of their memories, it is fom listenning to their voices that just repair processes can occur and from the mobilization of their memories that new forms on resistance may be found.