The mining-industrial sector in Minas Gerais and changes in environmental Governance from 2019 to 2023 in light of the Brazilian pattern of capital reproduction based on commodities

• Grant number: 24/03453-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: July 01, 2024
• End date: September 30, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology - Other specific Sociologies
• Principal Investigator: Frederico Daia Firmiano
• Grantee: Matheus José Costa Fernandes
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais (FCHS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Franca. Franca , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/15189-6 - The dismantling of environmental governance and the permissiveness of the mining-industrial complex in Argentina: an analysis of the Ley de Bases y Puntos de Partida Para La Libertad de Los Argentinos, BE.EP.IC

Abstract

This research has the general objective of investigating the changes in environmental governance associated with the mining-industrial sector during the Bolsonaro government and the first Zema government, from 2019 to 2023, and their impacts on the state of Minas Gerais in light of the consolidation of the Brazilian standard of productive specialization based on commodities. It is part of the project "Metabolic rift and the structural crisis of capital: the mining-industrial complex in Minas Gerais State and the tendency to eliminate the elementary conditions of social reproduction", financed by CNPq, through CNPq/MCT Call no. 10/2003, Process no. 403791/2023-5. Methodologically, this is qualitative research, supported by bibliographic and documentary study, on three fronts: (i) Review and analysis of the bibliography on the pattern of reproduction of capital based on commodities and the formation of a pattern of accumulation based on intensive exploitation of ecological and natural resources under conditions of structural capital crisis. It therefore starts from István Mészáros' theory of structural crisis; (ii) bibliographical and documentary survey and analysis of the changes in environmental governance that directly and indirectly implicate the mining-industrial complex, which occurred during the Bolsonaro government and the Zema governments, in Minas Gerais, between 2019 and 2023; and (iii) survey and analysis of reports from the National Mining Agency, the Brazilian Mining Institute and the government of Minas Gerais on the operations of the mining-industrial complex in the state over the last 5 years.