(Re) Conhecendo o Ciclo Hidrossocial: os movimentos da água na Comunidade Quilombola da Tapera (RJ)

Abstract

To understand how water circulates on the planet is essential, given the relevance of it to the most diverse forms of life, including the human being. Till now the most usual way of representing these water movements on Earth is from the hydrological cycle, model that can make the incredible job of simplifying and representing movements as complex as those of water. Considering this model, we understand the precipitation, infiltration, percolation, evaporation, transpiration of plants and drainage, providing a basis for the management of water resources over the last decades. However, there was still another essential factor that drives the water considerably which appears invisible in this abstraction: the human. From this critique, the concept of the hydrosocial cycle emerges during the 1990s, assuming that men and women are important members of this process of water movement who should not be ignored. This new lens to rinse the water does not disregard the hydrological cycle, yet the criticism assumes that the water movements that occur because of human beings. The hydrosocial cycle comprises the interaction between water and humans and realizes that we manipulate it in different ways, whether by hydraulic works, laws, cultural practices, among others; we take them out of their "natural way" through the hydrological cycle and put it on the route of our life. The work was carried out in a quilombola community located in the east extreme of the municipality of Petrópolis (RJ), in the region of Itaipava, called Tapera. Was thought in a combination of methodologies: the social cartography, that culminated in the production of a map built by the own community; the communicative investigation which permitted to make a historical reconstruction along with residents, seeking in the participatory methodology the protagonism of them in the elucidation of their relationship with water; as well as the guided hand that provided the best spacialization and understanding on water and his historical spaces. This community, which lives in a rural environment, has an intrinsic relationship with water and a hydraulic self-management taught by their ancestors bringing the river waters closer to themselves. This however, the great rains of January 2011 made an abrupt landmark in the history of the community, so that today they are known as the Tapera before the rains and the Tapera after the rains. Only after two years out of their territory, they returned when the resettlement had been built by the city hall, much farther from the river. The way the community deals with water has changed drastically. At the same time that they came to have more convenience, such as access to light, experienced a big change in some relationships have changed strongly, including in relation to including water. Today the whole community depends on just one spring supply, avoiding all its flow and excessive water pooling, seeing the water only when opening and closing the taps. So it was possible to see that, after the technologies of an outsider, were implanted in a rural area, using an urban way of relating to water. The river that appears in the mapping and hydrographic databases of the IBGE no longer follows the path that it used to point out, not because it ceased to exist, but because now it flows a social path, passing through the houses and changing completely its quality. During the work we could observe these and other social movements, besides proposing a relevant methodology for a better knowledge of the hydrosocial cycle of Tapera,. We also had the opportunity to know a very important community, full of stories, having the chance to see, at least partially its hydrosocial cycle.