Mining in the Minas Gerais Semi-Arid: Neoextractivism, State Acts, principles of classification and Resistance of Traditional Communities

Abstract

About fourteen years ago, the environmental licensing process began for a mega iron mining project by the Sul Americana de Metais (SAM) company in Vale das Cancelas, in the municipality of Grão Mogol, in the north of Minas Gerais. This project is part of the context of expanding the mineral frontier to the Vale do Rio Peixe Bravo ferruginous geosystem. This region is marked by the presence of traditional peoples and communities and by the configuration of territorial conflicts, in resistance to large neo-extractive projects. This article aims to analyze how the process of territorial conflict and resistance of the traditional communities of Geraizeira to the aforementioned mining project is configured. To this end, Acts of State and practices of resistance of the places were examined in light of the critical approach to neo-extractivism and the effects on the places. The methodological strategy mobilized bibliographic research, documentary analysis and direct observation in the region of Vale das Cancelas and Alto Rio Pardo. The results obtained made it possible to elucidate how, as early as the announcement of the mining project, traditional communities articulated their struggles against the territorial expropriations that would be caused by the implementation of the SAM mining project. They organized themselves as the Geraizeiro Movement, intertwined with the Rosalino Gomes Articulation of Traditional Peoples and Communities and entangled in the surrounding State Acts. These Acts constitute important critical events for the examination of state practices, the effects of neo-extractivism on places and the forms of struggle and daily resistance.