Cartografando pelas bordas: uma análise situacional das consequências da mineração em Maceió - AL

Abstract

The ongoing socio-environmental disaster in Maceió-AL is the focus of this research. The ground is sinking as a result of inadequate salt mining in an urban area, carried out by the multinational company Braskem. The earthquake that occurred in the Alagoas capital in 2018 made this disaster public, generating a sequence of agreements and decisions that significantly modified the daily lives of the affected people. One of the agreements was the evacuation of the so-called risk area, which includes the neighborhoods of Pinheiro, Mutange, Bebedouro, Bom Parto, and Farol. All the people (approximately 60 thousand)who lived in this region were forced to relocate, and the properties are in the process of demolition. In this scenario of massive displacement and ruins, there are the Border communities, which are located on the border between the uninhabited area and the inhabited area, where people live that they are not considered sufficiently affected to be displaced, according to the criteria for constructing the risk map. In these territories, social isolation, lack of security, difficulty accessing health, education, public transportation, among others, occur. At the end of November 2023, one of the extraction mines, number 18, after five years of the earthquake, presented a risk of collapse. This event, considered in this research as a critical incident, led to the objective of making visible the complexity of the consequences of mining for the population on the edges of the risk map, from that moment on. The research is situated in the field of socio-constructivist social psychology, using the cartographic method combined with situational analysis to position the complexity and diversity of repercussions derived from the field-theme. It incorporates in the analysis discursive, political, economic, human, spatial, temporal, symbolic, sociocultural, nonhuman, and other elements in the given situation. The results indicate that the people affected by the disaster do not participate in the management of risks and damages, as public documents recommend, and political interests create conflicts that significantly harm the governance of the management of the critical incident of mine 18. It is emphasized that the consequences of the disaster for the mental health of the affected people must be considered in scientific research and disaster management, as the suffering and social and psychological illness of this population have been invisible.