Mining Crime-Disasters in Brazil

perspectives presented in “Arrastados” and “Onde você está nesta lama”?

Abstract

The reflections developed in this article are grounded in a critical reading of the books “Arrastados”, by Daniela Arbex, and “Onde você está nessa lama?”, by Ricardo Assis Gonçalves. These two works are considered to provide significant interpretations of mining crime-disasters in Brazil. Taking the 2019 collapse of Vale S.A.’s Dam I in Brumadinho as its starting point, the article discusses how the mineral extraction model causes deaths, socio-environmental injustices, and profound territorial disruptions. The works analyzed reject the understanding of the disaster as an isolated or accidental event, demonstrating that tragedies of this nature result from structural processes linked to the logic of mining capital. While Daniela Arbex reconstructs the event through the stories of victims, survivors, and their families, Ricardo Assis Gonçalves reflects on the meanings of the mud and on society’s position in relation to mining. Read in dialogue with one another, the books reveal that the mud destroys not only landscapes and physical structures but also memories, social bonds, and ways of life. Thus, the analysis highlights the need to understand crime-disasters as expressions of a predatory economic model that transforms territories into permanent spaces of risk and violence.