Divisor de águas no Rio do Peixe: ambientalização dos conflitos sociais e racismo ambiental vivenciados pelos comunitários do Quati - Ba

Abstract

The central theme of this dissertation is the intersection between social conflicts and racial relations in the Quati Community, in the municipality of Pedro Alexandre, Bahia. The aim is to understand the conflicts and environmental racism experienced by the members of the Quati community before, during, and after the event of the dam breach. This relationship is a result of the environmental disaster caused by the breach of the Quati Dam, on July 11, 2019. Document analysis, semi-structured interviews, and the development of georeferenced maps contributed to the completion of an ethnography on the conflicts in the way social agents share, dispute control, and use natural, human, and environmental resources. The racial perspective provides an understanding of how the established relations are set between conflicts and the environmental racism experienced by the members of the Quati community in this context. Whereas existing conflicts are seen as environmental phenomena, in the background, there are mechanisms of social order embedded in the normative structure based on racist differentiation practices in the interaction between groups. The research has thus shown how the disaster caused and brought about changes in the established interactions among agents, evoking the historical process of contentious social and political interactions concerning issues of identity and ethnic representation in the ways of life of the Quati community members.