“We are right in the middle of them”: mining and the production of disasters

Abstract

This article draws on the history of Mingú, a neighborhood located at the center of the activities of a long-standing mining company in Nova Lima, in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, and discusses the interrelation of the production of disasters over time with the formation of a socio-spatial group. The narrative is informed by fragments of everyday life that seek to highlight the trends and patterns of broader processes, and which resonate beyond the particular context presented. Three phases in the history of Mingú are analyzed, revealing the continuity between extractivism and neoextractivism and the notion that disasters are not restricted to natural events, isolated in time and space. In this historical process, the constitution of the group is understood by the way its everyday practices take place within an unstable context, permeated by expropriation and by the difficulty of socio-spatial consciousness and autonomy.