Community in movement: the resettlement of Paracatu de Baixo (MG)

• Grant number: 19/27182-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: July 01, 2020
• End date: August 31, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Rural Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: Jorge Luiz Mattar Villela
• Grantee: Gabriela de Paula Marcurio
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The objective of this research is to analyze the resettlement process of Paracatu de Baixo community, in Mariana town, in the state of Minas Gerais (Brazil). I work with the polysemic notion of community, composed of different movements of residents to claim their lifestyles interrupted by the breach of the Fundão dam, owned by mining companies Samarco, Vale and BHP Billiton, in 2015. Due to the disaster, most inhabitants was compulsorily moved from the countryside to the municipal headquarters. My question is whether the movements that make up the community will be prepared in resettlement, considering the changes in the organization of social life. For this, I will do an ethnography describing and analyzing the activities of the affected people, after accompanying them in field research for three months. My hypothesis, based on the narratives of the residents, is that the notion of community is coextensive with that of movement, either before the disaster, in the daily circulation and exchange, or afterwards, in the form of claiming struggles. From this, I intend to verify the constitution of this semantic and pragmatic relationship in resettlement. (AU)