Young people affected by the dam burst in Brazil and their socialization processes

Abstract

The failure of the Fundão Dam in the city of Mariana (Minas Gerais, Brazil), which received iron ore tailings from Samarco Mineração, is considered the greatest socio-environmental disaster in Brazilian history. It is in this context that the reality of the participants of this study is inserted: young people from Bento Rodrigues and Paracatu de Baixo enrolled in High School and who were attending Elementary School in the schools of the destroyed districts. We are interested in understanding how their socialization processes were affected at a time of change in social environments and forced insertion in an urban space, in the headquarters of Mariana-MG. The methodological course of the research included conducting interviews with young people from these sub-districts, organized into configuration profiles and evaluated in the light of bibliographic and documentary research, with consultation of the articles produced about these young people and published in the newspaper A Sirene. In this text, we analyze three of these newspaper articles. The interviewees brought important information about the loss of the quiet routine experienced in the communities before the disaster and about the difficulties faced after moving to the headquarters, such as the fear of violence and the prejudice faced. The Fundão dam burst caused trauma to many affected people, therefore, analyzing how this experience has been lived by young people can contribute to the production of scientific knowledge about the context.