Água e convivência com o semiárido: múltiplas águas, distribuições e realidades

• Ano de defesa: 2016
• Autor(a) principal: Pereira, Maria Cecília Gomes
• Orientador(a): Farah, Marta Ferreira Santos
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Palavras-chave em Português: Água; Convivência com o semiárido; Combate à seca; Ação pública
• Palavras-chave em Inglês: Water; Coexistence with the semi-arid region; Fighting the drought; Public action; Actor-network theory
• Link de acesso: http://hdl.handle.net/10438/17062

This thesis discusses the access and distribution of water in rural areas of the Brazilian semi-arid region by comparing two ways of dealing with the issue: 'coexistence with the semi-arid region' (convivência com o semiárido) and 'fighting the drought'. The main objective is to analyze what makes the coexisting practices with semi-arid conditions a viable and widespread alternative of water distribution among the rural populations. Moreover, the research analyses in what way and to what extent water distributions based on the logics of coexistence and of fighting the drought enact different realities. To that end, I analyzed water distribution through the One Million Cisterns Program (P1MC ) of the Brazilian Semi-Arid Articulation (ASA), in contrast to those made to the Santa Cruz do Apodi Irrigation Project of The National Department of Works Against Droughts (DNOCS) and to business irrigated fruit crops. The adopted theoretical approaches were Public Action and Actor-Network Theory. This is a qualitative research with the adoption of praxiography method from a focus on practices, places, materialities and events, encompassing literature review, document analysis and fieldwork conducted in Apodi and Caraúbas in Rio Grande do Norte state. The research shows that coexistence practices with the semi-arid region were created over decades through public actions taken by civil society organizations – from the 'public' to the 'public' – and by initiatives from sectors of a state research center. Since the creation of ASA, some of these practices have become widespread throughout the semi-arid region by creating programs like P1MC promoting rainwater capture in cisterns. The P1MC became a viable and widespread alternative constituting itself as a public action from the 'public' to the 'public', being both collaborative and adversarial – through public pressure – with support from the federal government. Furthermore, it was characterized by: fluidity, capillarity and flexibility. Water distribution made by P1MC promotes decentralization of water access and ways of caring based on the logic of coexistence with the semi-arid region, whilst distributions to the Irrigation Project DNOCS and to business irrigated fruit crops generate concentration of water and accumulation by dispossession, driven by new versions of the fighting the drought logic. The logics of coexistence with the semi-arid conditions and fighting the drought involve different actors, ways of framing problems and solutions related to different development alternatives for the semi-arid region. These alternatives imply different relationships with nature and territories, as well as different distributions and uses of water, which enact different realities. The water and its distribution are multiple. Water distributions are deeply political and do more than just provide a natural resource as they also distribute rights, power, land, income and living conditions, by creating multiple realities that co-exist and interfere with each other.