The production of social space in Brazilian Amazon through hydroelectric dams: The case of Belo Monte´s conflict

Abstract

During the last decades in Brazil there has been a significant increase in hydrosocial conflicts due to the construction of large hydroelectric complexes, which involve qualitative and quantitative changes regarding access and ownership of water. It has opened a new period of accumulation and transformation of production relations through the commodification of this important resource. This extension of large projects of an extractivist nature in the Amazon region, especially from the end of the eighties from the last century, after the settlement of the so-called Washington consensus. This phenomenon led to a whole series of transformations in productive, reproductive and social relations, in order to provide mechanisms for regional and national integration, as well as for overcoming accumulation crises which came from the global scale. In the Brazilian case, these reforms undertaken in recent decades in the political, social, environmental, economic and legislative realms, have not meant a major change in the productive level of the world-economy scale, since the peripheral role in the country, initiated during the colonial period, continues to be maintained. But they have deepened their dependence through the extractivist development model, highlighting among other practices (such as the advance of the agricultural frontier, large soybean crops, the deployment of fracking to increase rents derived from the hydrocarbons, etc…) the large hydroelectric complexes located throughout the country's vast hydrographic basin. The main goal of this kind of new structures is to produce higher levels of energy, largely dedicated to the processing of aluminum, whose demand has increased exponentially in recent years in states such as China, among other BRICS.

From all these hydroelectric structures, due to their importance and expansion over time, probably the one that stands out the most is the Belo Monte dam on the Xingú river, near to the city of Altamira. A multiplicity of actors are involved in this one (indigenous communities, fishing farmers, the State, Eletrobras, non-governmental organizations, indigenous confederations, construction companies, supranational institutions, etc.) whose dispute over access to water resources implies a modification of the configuration of the power relations that take place in the territory. Although it is true that its planning began in 1975, within the framework of the search for a better use of the country's hydroelectric potential, to boost economic development and energy sovereignty; the advances and setbacks in the settlement of the operation of the infrastructure have been delayed until today and probably will continue in the near future. This paper not only aims to analyze the spatio-temporal path of this controversial conflict. Furthermore, it proposes two additional objectives. On the one hand, the elaboration of a theoretical framework that combines the perspectives of the production of nature, the production of space and the construction of scale, which could be applied to the analysis of other environmental conflicts that take place in the global south. On the other hand, and consequently, through its use in the study of this particular case, it seeks to determine the strengths and weaknesses that it shows for its use in future similar works. Hitherto the most part of the works and papers related with this case study are focused in the contentious politics of social movements and communities to stop the development of the project. As well as a significant number of them mainly analyze the contradictions of PT through the Brazilian state regarding to the different social impacts of the dam. This article aims to go beyond and provide tools and categories to explain the practices, relations and structures which are involved this process.

In view of this, a methodology based on bibliographic review and the use of both primary and secondary sources is proposed. Through this method, it is possible to obtain the set of practices, representations and relationships that shape the conflict itself. In turn, to achieve this end, the article is divided into four main parts. In the first one, it is exposed the articulation approach between the different categories and aspects of the theoretical gazes for their uses in the case study. In relation with the perspective of the production of nature, originally developed by Neil Smith, the categories of use value and exchange value are fundamental. These ones, through their dialectic within the production relations, modify through the pass of time the metabolism that takes place between nature and society itself, generating conflicts where these changes imply a clash between two modes of production. With this fact different values prevail over the environmental resources, whose access is sought to continue the process of social reproduction. In addition to this, the proposed framework take in count the categories of spatial practices, representations of space and spaces of representation, formulated by Henri Lefebvre, in order to explain how changes in power relations involve changes in the space in which they are inserted and vice versa. Furthermore, with the interscalar perspective proposed by several scholars that are mentioned, the possibility of explaining how phenomena and actors from different scales influence the local one during the long development of the conflict. Subsequently, in the second section of the paper, the analysis of the spatio-temporal development of the conflict is carried out, from the beginning of project planning, through the modifications carried out by the different governments, the changes in the positions of the actors, the different law resolutions, the granting of licenses and so on, until today.

Thirdly, the role of hegemonic actors in advancing the construction of the hydroelectric complex is explained and detailed, for which it is not only important to analyze the different representations and narratives carried out by different governments with respect to the project of Belo Monte, but also how state hydroelectric companies (Eletrobras and Eletronorte) are affected by the entrance of foreign capital, changing over time the spatial practices that are carried out, as well as the different positions of the institution responsible for the granting of environmental licenses to allow the dam activity (IBAMA). At the end, in the last part, the same operation is made but with the subordinate actors involved, which basically would be the local and foreign non-governmental organizations, as well as the communities of indigenous, peasant and fishermen of the locality. For them, the river fundamentally supposes a use value insofar as it is used as a source of resources and transportation to maintain pre-capitalist production relations on which they are sustained. Obviously, these activities have a low exchange value produced through its limited technology to harvesting and fishing, that finally are destined for local trade.

The main results which can be highlighted are related with how this dam in particular, and the different hydroelectric projects in general along the region, allow to extend spatially an economic integration through the deployment of new relations of production and mechanisms for accumulation. These ones suppose an appearance of new use values, exchange values and values that clash against the previous ones thus producing the social struggle in the local scale around the dam. Furthermore, the frameworks of the scale and the production of social space show as useful theories for its application to future cases of environmental conflicts, meanwhile the production of nature framework shows some difficulties in order to use some of its categories for the case study.