491
Mariana, Brumadinho and Their Brothers: Waiting for the Next Overwhelming Disaster
Mariana, Brumadinho and Their Brothers: Waiting for the Next Overwhelming Disaster
Abstract Submissions Closed
Thursday, 25 February 2021: 09:00-10:30
Location:
RC39 Sociology of Disasters (host committee)
Language: English
Session Type: Oral
On the 5th of November 2015 a tailing dam at Fundão, close to the small cities of Bento Rodrigues and Mariana caused an unprecedented environmental, socioeconomic and cultural catastrophe, killed 19 people and destroyed entire ecosystems all along the Rio Doce in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil for 630km up to the sea shore. On the 25th of January 2019, another tailings dam at the Córrego do Feijão, at some 9km east of Brumadinho in the same Brazilian state of Minas Gerais suffered another catastrophic failure this time killing some 186 with 122 missing people. Whereas no words can describe the human loss and suffering, it remains to analyze why institutions not only do not learn, but with a brutal and ice-cold calculation decide to ignore even the most basic measures of DRR on the basis of economic convenience and strategy. We contest that these events have a much deeper sociological significance as they mirror, such as in the case of the financial collapse of 2008, that people, suffering and, therefore, the very concept of citizenship need to be re-thought in the light of those and the next on-coming disaster. We make a worldwide call to the sociological community to join us in creating through this session a database of cases that analyze the almost scientific and calculated creation of disasters in spite of several decades of UNISDR declarations and international indignation. Papers presenting research-based evidence are welcome in any area fitting the session title.
Session Organizers: