"For Justice and Memory”: The Struggle of Relatives of Victims of the Brumadinho Dam Collapse, Brazil

This paper analyzes the repertoires of collective action and the construction of a sense of justice by the Association of Relatives of Victims and People Affected by the Collapse of the Córrego do Feijão Mine Dam in Brumadinho (Avabrum), Brazil. Through an intersectional analysis encompassing participant observation, interviews, analysis of videos and texts published on Avabrum's public page on Instagram, we analyze the political organization of these relatives in discussion with theories of social movements and socio-environmental conflicts, highlighting their organization in network, the construction of collective identity of victims, the internationalization of the struggle and the role of emotions in the process of social mobilization. In the context of a civilizational polycrisis, these family members, mostly women, are political subjects who interconnect different repertoires and demands: they fight for justice for their relatives and for better oversight in the mining sector. "While progress is being made in the mining sector, lives are still at risk because impunity makes crime recurrent," says the Avabrum board of directors at a mining sector exhibition. In this way, they show that demanding justice for their families also means preventing other crimes committed by large mining companies from happening. By accusing Vale of putting profit above life, they are fighting not only for their relatives, but for a society where big corporations are not above the law. As part of a long history of victims' families in Latin America who fight for justice, these family members bring emotions to the public space while denouncing socio-environmental crimes committed by big corporations.