DEVELOPMENT IN THE DARK

SUBJECTIVE CARTOGRAPHS AS LEGITIMATION OF POPULAR PARTICIPATION IN DAM CONSTRUCTION

Abstract

The subjective perception of historical and social facts is achieved from the local reality in traditional communities in the interior of Brazil. The city of Morada Nova de Minas is presented in this work, under the narrative of the residents, with the objective of announcing what was experienced from the occupation of municipal lands by the impounded waters in the construction of the Três Marias dam. The exploited field is reframed when an independent and highly productive population retreats to the use of lamps. The methodology of using semi-structured interviews, part of the reflection of oral knowledge, the lived experiences and the importance of interpreting the facts from the oratory of a non-vocalized people. Great works have complex arguments, as in this case, the multiple purposes of containing the floods, production of electric energy, irrigation and navigability of the river, facts that present different meanings that justified this project model. As a result, there was a lack of mitigation of the impacts caused to the communities there in education, transportation, economics, health and independence. The forecasts of rights, duties and public policies that would be implemented in order for development, while freedom, to be exercised in people's full lives, were absent from the discourse. It was noticed the absence of participation, social and environmental investment, inseparable themes, confronted in the text from the national developmentalist discourse.