Reading Anthopocene’s ruins in Minas Gerais: crime/catastrophe and cultural trauma in Mariana.

Abstract

The article seeks to provide some indications on how to situate Brazil in the Anthropocene. To achieve this goal, the question raised is: how to read the ruins of the Brazilian Anthropocene stemmed from recent disasters? The main objective is to assess the traumatic dimension of the Anthropocene in Minas Grais, specifically through Mariana's crime/catastrophe analysis. The purpose is, therefore, to delineate the contours of the Anthropocene in Minas Gerais, connecting them with the Alexander’s (2012) theory of cultural trauma and the dynamics between values ??and suffering, as argued by Joas (2013). Two documents were investigated - "Study and systematization of individual and collective moral damages for the indemnity / research process of those affected and affected by the tailings dam of Samarco Mineração SA (Vale and BHP Billiton) in Mariana-MG" and the book-report “Voices and silences in Mariana: crime or environmental disaster? ”, which were read through the lens of the theory of cultural trauma, of the interpretations of the Anthropocene within the human sciences and contributions, especially decolonial, that deconstruct hegemonic understandings about the society-nature relationship in modernity. It proposes the inseparability between the Anthropocene and catastrophes; cultural trauma is highlighted as an important element in understanding catastrophic impacts; a "ruin reading" is enabled to measure the impacts of tragedies. The importance of this research lies in exploring this small layer linked to the non-dimensioning of contemporary technological catastrophes. From two documents, it concludes that there is an active process underway to characterize Mariana's crime-catastrophe as a cultural trauma - mainly not that it says it respects moral decency, the expansion of sensitivity and the solidification of the event in public memory. In addition, the analysis of two documents shows that they are valid for reading the ruins of the Brazilian Anthropocene from the centrality of cultural trauma.