Percepções e práticas de redução de risco de desastre no município de Guidoval-MG: mudanças e permanências

Abstract

The occurrence and recurrence of disasters around the world, especially in Brazil, draws attention to issues with causes and developments in the social, political and economic spheres. In Brazil, data are concerning: between 1990 and 2012, there were 38,996 occurrences, which affected approximately 127 million people. Around the country, drought and dry spell are the disasters that hit the largest number of people, while floods and landslides are the ones that make most victims. This scenario leads us to question the reasons for their recurrence, after all, how do the society and the State behave in the face of these dramatic events? We know that, in general, the above-mentioned disasters affect especially vulnerable populations in the economic, social and political spheres – situations that undermine their capacity for action in the face of adverse circumstances. Due to the small emphasis given to this theme in the Social Sciences, especially in Brazil, we present the emergence of the sub-area of Sociology of Disasters, its history and state of art in the international and Brazilian scenarios. Backed by this theoretical framework, we carried out a case study on the disaster caused by a flash flood in the city of Guidoval (MG) in the year of 2012. We sought to understand to what extent the disaster was able to make changes in the perceptions, actions and behaviors of the people regarding the reduction of the risk of disasters at individual, organizational and institutional levels. To this end, 32 interviews with semi-structured scripts were applied to institutional representatives, organized civil society and non-organized individuals. Parallel to the analysis of the interviews, an investigation of official documents of the city was conducted in order to verify if changes occurred in the civil defense apparatus of the city. In order to understand the changes and permanences in the institutional scope, we conducted a research on the National System of Protection and Civil Defense (SINPDEC) and the National Policy on Protection and Civil Defense (PNPDEC), seeking to understand how both are articulated in the three federative levels.