O Dragão de Itataia: mineração e modos de contestação e de legitimação dos discursos do desenvolvimento

Abstract

This thesis aims to understand the ways of contestation and legitimization of development gestated during the installation of the Itataia’s Mineral Industrial Complex by those who conform a playing field on the effects of the operation of the uranium and phosphate mine, in municipality of Santa Quitéria, located in the semi-arid region of Ceará. The ways of challenging the discourse of development are related to the positions, the interpretations of social movements gathered in the Antinuclear Articulation of Ceará (AACE) and how social actors are against the enterprise, highlighting its threat and risks to the environment, Health and sustainable socioeconomic activities in the locations where the Santa Quiteria Project will be installed. The three modes of legitimation of development are: the discourse of abundance of natural goods such as uranium and phosphate that would justify mining; The discourse of sustainability that defends the option of generating nuclear energy as cleaner and sustainable; And properly the discourse of the redemption of the semiarid, emphasizing the generation of jobs to come and the hypothetical economic advantages for the municipality. Development as redemption refers to the discourses and actions aimed at legitimizing the Santa Quitéria Project (SQP) for its power to transform the semi-arid region of Ceará by building and enhancing development for a region marked by unequal access to natural assets. Part of the research was fieldwork, specifically at the headquarters of the municipality of Santa Quitéria and in two of its rural districts, Riacho das Pedras and Morrinhos. Another part was held at public hearings concerning the project with large scale uranium mining and phosphate. I also referred to the documents produced within the framework of a planned management of energy resources and the generation of nuclear energy by the Federal Government and those produced by the social movements and civil entities that are against the mining project. A research in the communication vehicles was also important to collect data and affirmations of the subjects involved in the defense and in the contestation to the Santa Quitéria Project. Conclusively, conflicts arising from this relationship and socio-environmental conflicts resulting from the long process that precedes the mine’s operation highlight the conflicting perceptions about the idea of development.