Narrativas de vida de impactados pela construção da usina hidrelétrica de serra da mesa

Abstract

The present research aims to present, based on the life stories of those impacted by the construction of the Serra da Mesa dam in Minaçu, how it directly and indirectly affected their lives, the nature and material relations at the site. The construction of hydroelectric dams has the consequence of several socio-environmental impacts, such as, for example, the deterritorialization of social subjects residing in the area, deforestation for the construction of transmission lines and the dam itself, water contamination due to the accumulation of sediments, among other impacts of a quantitative and qualitative nature. The Serra da Mesa hydroelectric plant is located in the Alto Tocantins Basin, in Goiás, covering parts of eight municipalities, Minaçu being one of them. As a methodology in this study, we adopted Bertaux's Life Narratives, which seeks in the procedures of ethnology to study lived experiences based on the fabric of socio-structural relationships of a given object of study. Based on this procedure, thirteen semi-structured interviews were carried out. Ten, of the thirteen interviewees, pointed out in their reports the loss of their homes, land ownership and work (mining and/or rural production), did not have the material conditions to recover from such an impact and claimed that they did not receive fair compensation. from the company responsible for building the dam (Furnas), that there was no resettlement policy and that the promised aid - such as mobility - was not fulfilled. The intensity with which the impacts of the dam construction were felt by these subjects depended on their social class. Of these ten interviewees, there are those who belong to the dispossessed class – those who only have their labor force – and those who had subsistence farms (squatters and small producers) that they lost when the lake flooded. Furthermore, they report the direct impact on nature due to the area not being properly cleaned before the construction of the dam, which led to contamination of water and livestock by gases from the decomposition of organic matter. In addition, it was noted that underground caves were flooding, which led to a flock of bats leaving their habitat and attacking the production of local farmers. The majority of respondents point to insufficient compensation, when it occurred, as the only mitigation measure taken. Even though there are other mitigating measures, which are highlighted in reports by Furnas, such as medical monitoring, cattle mobilization, climate and seismological monitoring, they are not perceived equally by those affected, they do not even exist for the majority of those interviewed in this research, as they do not is associated with your direct life experience. We conclude that the construction of the Serra da Mesa plant profoundly affected the lives of those social subjects who lived close to the dam, especially those who did not have material conditions. Based on our theoretical framework, the construction of the Serra da Mesa dam broke with the possibilities of human production for certain social subjects.