Nature under construction: rationalities and discourses about the Lobo/Broa Dam

• Grant number: 14/15607-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: November 01, 2014
• End date: February 29, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology - Other specific Sociologies
• Agreement: Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES)
• Principal Investigator: Rodrigo Constante Martins
• Grantee: Raiza Campregher
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The emergence of the modern environmental issues, from the 1960s, represented significant changes in the way societies perceive the environment, in particular through their social representations. In this sense, the present work understands environmental issues as social constructions that depend on the action of social agents, among which science plays a fundamental role. Social representations of the environment, in turn, are also the result of different interactions with the space. Thus, the project aims to interpret social representations assigned to the Lobo/Broa dam by different social groups, among them: scientists, residents, tourists and tourism entrepreneurs and the government. Whereas such representations are historical products, the project also proposes to understand the transformations of these representations over time, and understand how such representations are formed and are prioritized in the context of social practices. To develop the research, qualitative methods of social research will be used, including bibliographic and documentary research and semi-structured interviews. (AU)