Mining in Brazil and Environmental Racism: the Case of the Rio Doce Basin

Abstract

This analysis seeks to understand how post-disaster management practices promote policies of affectations on these populations and the racialized dimensions of these practices, based on what happened in Mariana (MG). This article is structured, in the first moment, presenting neoextractivism, highlighting the importance of mining in Brazil and it interlace with the racial issue, in its historical and economic perspective. In the second part, the relationship between mining and the racial issue deepens, based on the location of the dams and the percentage of non-white population in Minas Gerais. The third part of this article analyzes, specifically, the corporate disaster that occurred in Mariana (MG) and the policies of damage repair and post-disaster management, making it difficult to build an anti-racist agenda in mining territories the overcoming of structural racism.