The waters, the land and the development of the Submédio São Francisco: Nilo Coelho Irrigated Perimeter File (BA/PE)

• Grant number: 23/02051-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: January 01, 2024
• End date: September 30, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: Jorge Luiz Mattar Villela
• Grantee: Sabrina Maria Gonçalves Luz Barros Bezerra
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 20/07886-8 - Arts and semantics of creation and memory, AP.TEM

Abstract

The overall goal of this research is to conduct an ethnography of the archive based on its statements that capture and plan the use and distribution of the waters of the São Francisco River and the irrigated lands of the Submédio São Francisco for the implementation of the Nilo Coelho Irrigated Perimeter, from 1983, located in the municipalities of Casa Nova-BA and Petrolina-PE, formerly known as the Massangano Project. As an empirical object, I isolated the following documents from the physical archive of the Superintendency for the Development of the Northeast and the Company for the Development of the São Francisco and Parnaíba Valleys: 1) the bulletins and evaluations of the Irrigation Program; and 2) the four Master Plans of Sudene. With this, I intend to privilege the 1980s as it encompasses the research and planning for the implementation of the Perimeter, but also keeping documents from the 1960s and 70s so that it is possible to relate the Irrigation Policy to the concerns surrounding what was called underdevelopment of the Northeast in the documents that make up this archive. My attention will turn to this archive with the aim of investigating how it mobilized the planning of water distribution together with land distribution in the semi-arid region of Pernambuco and Bahia, bringing to light a possible integration of the water problem with the land. In this way, I intend to contribute to anthropological studies on policies and development effects in Submédio, and in the caatinga in general, with an emphasis on the elaboration of notions of land, water, and development by the Irrigation Policy.