Upstream, Downstream: Fishermen, River and Risks in Low São Francisco River

Abstract

Risk perception is one of the pillars of water management. This text proposes to reflect on the meanings of risk in the life experiences of the fishermen of the Lower São Francisco River, in a scenario of increasing environmental degradation. A phenomenological approach and method were used, whose object are the meanings attributed to the lived experience. The fishermen were interviewed in the municipalities of Piaçabuçu, Alagoas, and Canindé de São Francisco and Propriá, in Sergipe. Three essential structures have been revealed: widespread disbelief; maximization of the sense of risks due to the transposition of river waters; the association between the death of the “Velho Chico” and the cultural death of the riverside communities, as well as their social and economic structures. In this scenario, fishermen place themselves as river watchers, as defenders of this environmental and immaterial heritage.