Samarco And The Mariana (Mg) Disaster: A Social Representation Study

Name: PAULA BORTOLON

Publication date: 26/04/2018
Advisor:

Namesort descending Role
PRISCILLA DE OLIVEIRA MARTINS DA SILVA Advisor *

Examining board:

Namesort descending Role
LETICIA DIAS FANTINEL Internal Examiner *
MARIANA BONOMO External Examiner *
PRISCILLA DE OLIVEIRA MARTINS DA SILVA Advisor *

Summary: On the afternoon of November 5th 2015, Samarco’s dam ‘Fundao’ colapsed at Mariana (MG). It is structure designed to accommodate tailings from extraction and processing of iron ore. This rupture was considered the greatest environmental disaster in the history of Brazil and caused enourmous impacts in several contexts: environmental, social, economic, cultural, institutional, among others.The moment it occurred, Samarco’s operations were suspended and one of its consequences was the implementation of a Voluntary Dismissal Program (VDP) - in June 2016 by the company. This study aimed to analyze the process of formation of the Samarco’s Social Representations as well as the disaster’s one for the former employees who joined the PDV. To achieve that, individual interviews were conducted with ten former employees who joined the PDV. These interviews were transcribed and submitted to the Iramuteq software in order to have the data analysed by the criteria of the Theory of Social Representations (TSR). The results evidenced that, for the participants who belonged to the administrative area, the disaster acted in the process of restructuring Samarco's representational field, moving from a positive social representation to a negative one when considering the analysed context, identifying the company as negligent. As for the subjects from the operational, health and safety areas, a great effort was observed to maintain their positive social representation, considering the disaster an accidental event.

Keywords: Social representations. Disaster. Samarco.

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