The Dis-Re-Inhabiting in the Socio-environmental Disaster in Maceió-AL

Abstract

This article presents a multilateral perspective on the conflicts between natural and built forces in a region currently experiencing what is considered the world's largest ongoing socio-environmental disaster, in the northeastern Brazilian city of Maceió, in the state of Alagoas, Brazil. The event resulted in the total or partial collapse of five neighborhoods in the city — Pinheiro, Mutange, Farol, Bebedouro, and Bom Parto — due to excessive rock salt extraction by the company Braskem. In seeking to understand the consequences of the disaster in terms of spatial (dis)occupation, the methodological approach adopted here is empirical, based on data collection (observation of post-disaster dynamics and photographic records) and a comparison between images, in order to identify landscape transformations caused by the forced displacement of residents from the affected areas. In this way, the article discusses the confrontations and insurgencies related to the disaster in the city, resulting in the recognition of persistent presences and traces of another way of inhabiting — whether through the vegetation that has grown, the writings on the walls left by ex-residents, the silence of the abandoned area, or the sound of demolition machines — highlighting the significance of the temporal and symbolic layers of this region in ruins. In this sense, we understand the disaster as a continuous process of territorial metamorphosis, in which presences and absences coexist. As a result, temporal contrasts are accentuated, and the relationships between space, time, and ways of life indicate the relevance of revising the concept of urban living. It is not only a matter of management but, above all, of sharing and coexisting in a more integrated way, through dialogue between beings (human and non-human) in different temporalities and within the same space, thus contributing to the construction of alternative