Água, território e justiça: a transposição do Rio São Francisco e as Vilas produtivas rurais

Abstract

From the Brazilian imperial period to the current century, the transposition of the São Francisco River has always been included in the national political agenda. Considering this context, in which the association among drought, lack of water and poverty continues to be renewed in political discourses about the Northeast region, in this research, we sought to analyze the different faces of the São Francisco River transposition project, starting from the foundation of the generation of water equity and security and the impacts caused to the deterritorialized population. As a spatial clipping, it was defined the process of deterritorialization and reterritorialization of the population of the 16 Rural Productive Villages of the North Axis (VPR, in the Portuguese initialism), which still lack adequate access to water. In this study, proposing an articulation among the theoretical-analytical categories water, territory and justice, a theoretical-empirical discussion was constructed in which the concepts of deterritorialization and reterritorialization and of spatial justice and territorial justice intertwine. Given the complexity of defining what is fair and what is unfair, a dialogue was sought between the classical theoretical references on justice and on the integrative and relational conception of territory. In methodological terms, a qualitative approach was chosen, with field research, analysis of the Population Resettlement Program (PBA-08, in the Portuguese initialism), application of questionnaires, interviews and participation in VPR forums, in order to bring together important elements for reflection on territorial (in)justice in this transposition project. It was defended, based on an integrative and relational perspective of territory, that justice and territorial injustice form a dialectical pair – present in every human relationship in different and/or complementary dimensions (natural, economic, social and political) –, and in situations of oppression (of any kind or proportion) territorial injustice prevails. According to the observations in loco, the questionnaires and interviews carried out, it was found that mitigating actions, such as own housing, access to land and temporary maintenance funds can be considered as generators of territorial justice and, on the other hand, actions of oppression, such as a reduction in the amount of the temporary maintenance budget, in addition to its suspension during the pandemic period, inspection and punishment of families absent from inspection visits carried out by the Ministry of Regional Development and the failure to meet some goals and objectives set out in the PBA- 08, can be considered as generators of territorial injustice.