Vale tudo: Action strategies for Vale after the Córrego do Feijão dam criminal disaster

Abstract

Purpose: This article aims to analyze the strategies used by Vale during the first two years after the Brumadinho dam disaster to deal with criticisms from civil society in the face of the consequences caused by the rupture. Originality/value: The article contributes to understanding the strategic processes used by large enterprises to respond to environmental disasters and other damages resulting from activities and work accidents caused by these organizations. It demonstrates how such strategies can be applied and succeed because they are linked to actions and articulations with key actors involved and co-opted in economic, political, and social processes before the disaster. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative, case study type of research was conducted with citizens of Brumadinho and local mobilization groups. The interviews conducted with ten citizens of the municipality and document analysis allowed a volume of information from the various actors that make up and participate in the tangle surrounding the actions related to this disaster. Findings: The company uses mechanisms that impute discouragement and disbelief in the affected people, fomenting the politics of resignation through numerous strategies of bureaucratization, social and mental suffering, and rights violations that postpone the reparation actions to the affected people. The article demonstrates how the context of technological disasters involves a political, economic, institutional, and social process marked by violations, influences, and injustices with communities and people whose beginning is before the disasters.