Abstract
This chapter is based on my PhD research on the Minas-Rio iron-ore mining project, which is currently being implemented in Brazil despite strong contestation. Assisted by environmentalists, researchers and lawyers, local groups have been mobilizing inter alia for their right to information and to participate effectively in decision-making processes in order to fight the loss and contamination of their livelihoods. Under Brazilian law, official decision-making within the environmental licensing process must respect the rights to information and participation. However, these rights are undermined in everyday juridical-administrative procedures and processes. Based on the theoretical debates about legal proceduralization and following an action research approach, I have tried to understand the mechanisms that lead to a hollowing out of the rights to information and participation in an attempt to produce knowledge that supports local peoples’ rights. The chapter also sets out to reflect upon ethical and methodological implications of action research. While the objectivity of social sciences has been generally questioned, the normative outlook of action researchers and their siding with one faction in a conflict necessitates even more explicit reflections about positionality and subjectivity in research. I maintain that including the perspective of actors who traditionally are ignored by political and economic authorities is justified on academic, normative and social grounds.
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Notes
- 1.
Becker (2009), p. 340.
- 2.
Costa (1975).
- 3.
A detailed analysis of tourism as a development policy in Conceição do Mato Dentro, as well as of social mobilization around ecotourism in CMD, is the object of Becker (2009).
- 4.
Becker (2009), pp. 324, 339.
- 5.
The Minas-Rio Project encompasses an open-pit mine and processing plant in Conceição do Mato Dentro, Alvorada de Minas and Dom Joaquim (covering an area of around 3880 hectares of land), a mineral-duct of 525 km crossing 32 municipalities in the states of Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro, which connects the processing plant to the Açu Port (the port itself was built in connection with the project in order to export iron ore). With initial investments of 3 billion dollars and predicted production of 26.6 million tons of iron ore per year (Prates 2014, p. 11), the project had already cost 8.8 billion dollars by 2013 (according to Miller JW and Kiernan P, Miner, billions over budget, slogs ahead in rural Brazil. The Wall Street Journal, 9 June 2013, http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323582904578487090505277214 (last accessed 1 October 2018). Its water demand according to the EIS (3123 m3 per hour), and its pressure on local water resources has been one of the main problems raised by affected families and environmentalists (see Becker 2009, p. 340; Becker and Pereira 2011).
- 6.
Yet, in the first year of the environmental licensing process, some of those who were already involved in paving the way to ecotourism in the region, and who were initially members of the FórumCMD, created a competing group with a similar name (Fórum Conceição Sustentável) and started to organize events in order to persuade the local population that mining would be the best development strategy, as long as they were able to push for good environmental compensation (e.g. financing of reforestation and recuperation of water springs and riparian vegetation). There was considerable resistance, nonetheless, as we will see below.
- 7.
- 8.
Mercado Pacheco (2012), pp. 38–42.
- 9.
Estévez Araújo (2006), p. 99.
- 10.
- 11.
Faria (2009), p. 18.
- 12.
- 13.
Ladeur (2004), p. 6.
- 14.
Mercado Pacheco (2012), p. 41.
- 15.
Dagnino (2004), p. 143.
- 16.
Dagnino (2004), p. 142.
- 17.
Milaré (2011), p. 1069.
- 18.
Mercado Pacheco (2012), p. 59.
- 19.
Further detailed in the final session, where I present a critical analysis of my research methods.
- 20.
Brazil, National Council for the Environment (CONAMA) Resolution 001/1986, Article 2, http://www.mma.gov.br/port/CONAMA/res/res86/res0186.html (last accessed 1 October 2018); CONAMA Resolution 237/1997, Article 2, http://www.mma.gov.br/port/CONAMA/res/res97/res23797.html (last accessed 1 October 2018).
- 21.
A fact that has been questioned by resistance movements: once the pipeline goes from the state of Minas Gerais to the state of Rio de Janeiro, where the logistics of the project also demanded the construction of a port, the Union could as well have jurisdiction with respect to the project as a whole.
- 22.
The open pit mine of the Minas-Rio Project was licensed in four stages—the installation license being divided into installation license 1 (LI-1) and installation license 2 (LI-2), which was interpreted by many researchers (Becker and Pereira 2011; Becker 2009, p. 340) and locals (MAM, 2017) as a strategy to fragment the process and, thus, make it harder to assess the total impacts of the project.
- 23.
CONAMA Resolution 237/1997, Article 8, I, http://www.mma.gov.br/port/CONAMA/res/res97/res23797.html (last accessed 1 October 2018).
- 24.
CONAMA Resolution 237/1997, Article 8, II, http://www.mma.gov.br/port/CONAMA/res/res97/res23797.html (last accessed 1 October 2018).
- 25.
CONAMA Resolution 237/1997, Article 8, III, http://www.mma.gov.br/port/CONAMA/res/res97/res23797.html (last accessed 1 October 2018).
- 26.
EIA in Portuguese does not correspond to the same acronym in English, which stands, as well known, for Environmental Impact Assessment. It refers just to a particular type of Environmental Impact Study. To avoid confusion, I will, in this chapter, refer to the study as EIS.
- 27.
National Council for the Environment (CONAMA) Resolution 237/1997, Article 3, sole paragraph, http://www.mma.gov.br/port/CONAMA/res/res97/res23797.html (last accessed 1 October 2018).
All translations of legal texts, interviews and literature originally in Portuguese or Spanish are my own, unless indicated otherwise.
- 28.
CONAMA Resolution 001/1986, Article 6, I, http://www.mma.gov.br/port/CONAMA/res/res86/res0186.html (last accessed 1 October 2018).
- 29.
CONAMA Resolution 001/1986, Article 6, II, http://www.mma.gov.br/port/CONAMA/res/res86/res0186.html (last accessed 1 October 2018).
- 30.
CONAMA Resolution 001/1986, Article 6, III, http://www.mma.gov.br/port/CONAMA/res/res86/res0186.html (last accessed 1 October 2018).
- 31.
CONAMA Resolution 001/1986, Article 6, IV, http://www.mma.gov.br/port/CONAMA/res/res86/res0186.html (last accessed 1 October 2018).
- 32.
In Minas Gerais, this initial dialogue stage in practice lumps screening and scoping in rather informal consultations between the professionals who will elaborate the EIS and the Environmental Authority.
- 33.
Fonseca (2015), p. 32.
- 34.
The environmental authority for the open pit mine of CMD is located in Diamantina, Minas Gerais, approximately 150 km away from CMD. The road trip takes around 3 h. By the time of my field research (which coincided with the end of the operation license stage) I often needed 4 h, as the road only has two lanes (one in each direction) and it was undergoing construction in several places.
- 35.
Fonseca (2015), p. 32.
- 36.
Brazil. Constitution of 1988, Article 225, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/constituicao/constituicaocompilado.htm (last accessed 1 October 2018).
- 37.
See: Brazil. Law 6938, 31 August 1981, Article 9, XI, and Article 4, V, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/leis/L6938.htm (last accessed 24 August 2017); Law 10650, April 16 2003, especially Article 2, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/leis/2003/L10.650.htm (last accessed 1 October 2018); Constitution of the Federal Republic of Brazil from 1988, Article 5, XIV and XXXIII, Article 225 §1° IV and VI, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/constituicao/constituicaocompilado.htm (last accessed 1 October 2018).
- 38.
See: Constitution of the Federal Republic of Brazil from 1988, Article 225, §1°, IV; National Council for the Environment (CONAMA) Resolution 237/1997, Article 3, http://www.mma.gov.br/port/CONAMA/res/res97/res23797.html (last accessed 1 October 2018); CONAMA Resolution 009/1987, Article 2, http://www.mma.gov.br/port/CONAMA/res/res87/res0987.html (last accessed 1 October 2018); CONAMA Resolution 001/1986, Article 11 §2°, http://www.mma.gov.br/port/CONAMA/res/res86/res0186.html (last accessed 1 October 2018).
- 39.
These reports are usually referred to together as EIA-RIMA.
- 40.
CONAMA Resolution 001/1986, Article 9, Sole paragraph, http://www.mma.gov.br/port/CONAMA/res/res86/res0186.html (last accessed 1 October 2018), highlighted.
- 41.
I opted for this expression (instead of Public Prosecution Office, commonly found in translations from Brazilian Portuguese to English) to refer to the Ministério Público because this institution has no correspondence in English-speaking common law countries. This public authority is independent from the executive, from the judiciary and from the legislature and is also known as a fourth power in Brazil. It exists at the federal (Ministério Público Federal (MPF)) and the state level—(Ministério Público Estadual (MPE)). Its constitutional mandate designates it as “a permanent institution that is essential to the jurisdictional function of the state” (Brazilian Constitution, Article 127); apart from criminal prosecution, it is mandated to defend the legal order, democracy, and social interests and inalienable individual interests. In the environmental licensing, the member of the Government Agency of Law Enforcement and Public Prosecution acts as guardian of the law, defendant of the legal order and of community rights. Throughout this chapter, I refer to the Minas Gerais Government Agency for Law Enforcement and Prosecution (Ministério Público de Minas Gerais) as MPMG.
- 42.
The CONAMA resolutions determine, for example, parameters to emissions, standards to air and water resources quality, among others.
- 43.
Brazil. Law 6938, 31 August 1981, Article 8, VII, http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/leis/L6938.htm (last accessed 1 October 2018).
- 44.
Milaré (2011), p. 230.
- 45.
SUPRAM stands for superintendência regional de meio ambiente.
- 46.
URC stands for Unidade Regional Colegiada. The Minas-Rio open pit mine falls within the jurisdiction of SUPRAM-Jequitinhonha and its respective council, URC-Jequitinhonha.
- 47.
According to the legislation applicable from 2007 to 2016 (period under analysis) to environmental licensing in Minas Gerais, the Decree 44.667/2007, Article 23: “Each URC, observing the equal representation criterion, is composed by the maximum of twenty members, representation is guaranteed of the following segments: I. state public power; II. federal public power; III. municipal public power, IV. representative entities of the productive sector; V. liberal professions related to environmental protection; VI. non-governmental organizations legally constituted for protection, conservation and improvement of the environment; VII. regional entities whose activities are related to the development of environmental protection policies; VIII. entities of acknowledged dedication to teaching, research, or technological or scientific development in the area of environment or improvement of life quality”. The URC Jequitinhonha has twenty councilor positions, ten representing the government, ten representing civil society (encompassing both the “productive sector”, as the mining industry; and environmental protection NGOs). Not all positions are filled all times. https://www.almg.gov.br/consulte/legislacao/completa/completa.html?tipo=Dec&num=44667&ano=2007 (last accessed 14 June 2018).
- 48.
CONAMA Resolution 009/1987, Article 2, § 2°, http://www.mma.gov.br/port/CONAMA/res/res87/res0987.html (last accessed 1 October 2018); Milaré (2011), p. 549.
- 49.
- 50.
Bermann (2014), p. 98.
- 51.
OHCHR, Equal participation in political and public affairs. In: United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Pages/EqualParticipation.aspx. (last accessed 1 October 2018).
- 52.
- 53.
Equality of citizens’ capacity to reason and to participate in politics justifies majority rule in classical democracy and modern forms of representative democracy. Equality, however, is more than a formal premise: it also becomes a central objective of democratic regimes. This brings with it the need for an educational system that prompts autonomous thinking and critical capacity. This argument is elaborated by Castoriadis (1998), pp. 222–223. Although Castoriadis deconstructs the notion of purely procedural democracy, like Habermas he highlights the importance of citizen participation in the public sphere for a functioning democracy.
- 54.
Following Mercado Pacheco (2012), I derive this concept of participation from the experimentalist governance debates.
- 55.
- 56.
Mercado Pacheco (2012), p. 57.
- 57.
The stakeholder category encompasses companies, public powers, NGOs and other actors, besides natural persons.
- 58.
This is the case of representation through councilors in the URCs in the environmental licensing of Minas Gerais.
- 59.
Minas Gerais, Decree 44.667/2007, Article 23, V and VIII, https://www.almg.gov.br/consulte/legislacao/completa/completa.html?tipo=Dec&num=44667&ano=2007 (last accessed 14 June 2018).
- 60.
Mercado Pacheco (2012), p. 59.
- 61.
Mercado Pacheco (2012), p. 60, my translation.
- 62.
The environmental studies just make predictions, which may have been established following the most reliable methods and available information. They can never eliminate the risk of unexpected outcomes, be they negative or positive.
- 63.
The total of 18 public meetings encompassed sessions organized by affected families without the presence of the mining company; one meeting organized by the affected families with the mining company, mediated by the local prosecutor; meetings organized by municipal authorities with the mining company and with attendance of affected families; meetings organized by municipal authorities because of affected families’ pressure (without the presence of the mining company); meetings organized by state environmental authorities with the mining company, environmental councillors and prosecutor (without affected families or anyone representing them); and URC public sessions to deliberate on the environmental permit (with considerable attendance of affected families and mining company representatives and workers).
- 64.
Members of affected families and resistance groups, municipal authorities, environmental authorities and technical staff (including legal experts) who participated in the case since its beginning and, therefore, know it thoroughly, environmentalists and members of the MPMG.
- 65.
Drafts of Opinions are solely for internal use at SUPRAM. The final Opinions (Parecer Único—PU) are the only documents that become part of the case file, and, thus, can become available to the public. Sometimes the case file also includes memoranda, short summaries of the discussions among the technical staff. As reported by the interviewee, though, there were superior orders not to file any memoranda.
- 66.
The highest officer at SUPRAM.
- 67.
Interview with SUPRAM environmental expert (technical staff). Minas Gerais, May 22nd, 2015. I do not mention the gender, specific position within the SUPRAM, background or age of any of these interviewees, in order to protect their anonymity. The staff to which I refer as technical or environmental experts encompasses environmental engineers, civil engineers, hydraulic engineers, mechanical engineers, geographers, agronomists, etc.
- 68.
Some were afraid of talking to me in recorded interviews.
- 69.
The highest positions in the Environmental Bureaucracy in the whole state, only subordinated to the Governor.
- 70.
Interview with SUPRAM environmental expert (technical staff). Minas Gerais, 22 May 2015.
- 71.
Interview with SUMPRAM superintendent. Diamantina, Minas Gerais, 29 May 2015.
- 72.
Interview with MPMG member, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, 6 March 2015.
- 73.
Becker (2009), p. 352.
- 74.
Minas Gerais, Parecer Único SISEMA n° 001/2008. P.A COPAM n°472/2007/001/2007, the author has it on file.
- 75.
Minas Gerais, Parecer Único SISEMA n° 001/2008. P.A COPAM n°472/2007/001/2007, the author has it on file.
- 76.
Becker (2009), pp. 339–357.
- 77.
This complaint was made in many informal talks in CMD between September 2014 and June 2015 by founders of the FórumCMD and other actors involved in the opposition to the project.
- 78.
The person who worked at the city hall at the time and who had access to the EIS-RIMA said, in an interview (Conceição do Mato Dentro, 19 March 2015) that the document was available for public consultation at all times. But those who initially mobilized to understand the project and its potential consequences, and whom I have also interviewed (resistance supporter, Belo Horizonte, 28 July 2014; resistance initiator, Belo Horizonte, 27 May 2015; community leader, Conceição do Mato Dentro, 29 March 2015), contradicted this information. Many local residents also mentioned the fact in informal conversations during the first semester of 2015.
- 79.
Becker (2009), p. 346. According to Becker, who did her research while the preliminary license was being discussed in CMD (between 2006 and 2008), political groups that were in power at the municipal level (and had initially supported the FórumCMD) decided to support the mining company around July 2007. From this moment on, the municipal secretary for the environment and other municipal authorities restricted popular access to official documents and decisions about the Minas-Rio project in CMD. Those interested in this information, thus, pursued it at the Minas Gerais state level.
- 80.
The absence of the relevant documents online was criticized by the communities through the MPMG member at the URC, for example, on the URC meeting on 18.09.2014 (see minutes of the 85th URC-JEQ meeting, lines 95 to 110 (on file with the author)).
- 81.
As established in Article 37 of the constitution in what can be translated as “publicness principle” or “openness principle” of administrative acts and in article 5, XXXIII, all Brazilians and resident foreigners are entitled to receive information from public authorities relevant to their private interest, or the general or collective interest, except for information related to national security matters.
- 82.
COPAM—Conselho Estadual de Política Ambiental (State Council for Environmental Policy) has jurisdiction over the whole state of Minas Gerais (not only over a sub-region, as the URCs). At the time the interviewee worked at the environmental authority of Minas Gerais, all decisions on permits were taken at the COPAM public sessions. After decentralization reforms in Minas Gerais (that started around 2005), decisions on permits started to be taken at the regional level, at the URCs meetings.
- 83.
Interview with environmental authority’s former technical staff (environmental expert). Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, 18 May 2015. Again I do not indicate gender, age or exact position of the person in order to ensure anonymity.
- 84.
This is a common issue mentioned by URC councilors in interviews and publically, during URC meetings. See, for example, the minutes of the 90th URC-JEQ meeting, lines 213–214 (on file with the author).
- 85.
Interview with SUPRAM superintendent, Diamantina, 29 May 2015.
- 86.
And the literature on strong and weak concepts of sustainable development, or on strong and weak senses of the sustainability principle is also countless, see, for example, Mercado Pacheco (2013), Zhouri (2014) Maping environmental inequalities in Brazil: mining, environmental conflicts and impasses of mediation. desiguALdades.net Working Paper Series 75; Sampaio (2011), p. 167; Zhouri et al. (2005).
- 87.
- 88.
The road trip from CMD to Diamantina takes around three and a half hours by bus. For interested persons from local communities (including affected families) and other actors critical of the project, participation in URC meetings means that they miss one day of work and the corresponding income. Furthermore, they must fund their own expenses. The mining company, by contrast, has staff that attends these meetings and covers all their costs. Despite these constraints, community members and other interested actors (including activist researchers) have participated in the public deliberative sessions in order to discuss and vote on each permit—and they maintain doing so to date.
- 89.
Interview with legal advisor of a mining and environmental law firm. Belo Horizonte, 15 June 2015.
- 90.
Interviews with legal expert of SUPRAM. Diamantina, 22 May, 2015 and 1 June, 2015.
- 91.
Interviews with a legal expert of SUPRAM. Diamantina, 22 May, 2015 and 1 June, 2015.
- 92.
The consultancy company Diversus carried out the field research of this first study between August and December 2010, with the report being published in August 2011. Diversus then had to write an addendum to the study (published in August 2012). And as the discussions and doubts about the socio-economic impacts of the project; flaws (and frauds) in land negotiation processes; and about how to define which families could be considered affected went on, Diversus produced two further studies, published in August and September 2014. These issues to the present days remain disputed. See Diversus (2011, 2012, 2014a, b), as well as the minutes of the 43ª URC-JEQ meeting, the author has it on file.
- 93.
De Oliveira Vieira (2015), p. 65.
- 94.
Interview, Conceição do Mato Dentro, 24 March 2015.
- 95.
De Oliveira Vieira (2015), p. 69.
- 96.
Direct observation, September 2014.
- 97.
I could observe one such protest at the 85th URC Extraordinary meeting, on 18 September 2014. According to the agenda a vote was to be taken on the operation permit for the first stage of the Minas-Rio project. About 2 weeks before, a lot of fish had suddenly appeared floating on a creek in the surroundings of the tailings dam of the project. Local communities that depend on this creek for their own water consumption, for their crops, fruit gardens and animals, had long been saying that the creek had been polluted and its water was no longer healthy, not even for animals. Demanding clean-up of the creek and access to water, these communities brought iceboxes filled with dead fish and plastic bottles with water from the creek in order to show the authorities what they were talking about, thus generating turmoil at the meeting. In the end, the MPMG member requested more time to examine the case file and the voting was postponed to 29 September 2014. Local dwellers organized road blockades at several occasions, when I was in the field, on 29 April 2015, and later in 2015, 2016 (as reported by Prates 2017, p. 28) and more recently, in March 2018. See Rodrigues W, Como prometido, manifestantes bloqueiam acesso à Anglo em Conceição do Mato Dentro. De Fato Online 12 March 2018, https://www.defatoonline.com.br/como-prometido-manifestantes-bloqueiam-acesso-anglo-em-conceicao-do-mato-dentro/ (last accessed 1 October 2018).
- 98.
See the selection filters determining who can become a councilor in the aforementioned legislation, supra footnote 47.
- 99.
This was mentioned in interviews with EIS-RIMA elaboration experts on 6 May 2015; with SUPRAM staff (Diamantina, 22 May 2015; 29 May 2015), with URC councilors themselves (Diamantina, 8 May 2015), among others.
- 100.
Interview with SUPRAM environmental expert, Diamantina, 29 May 2015.
- 101.
Interview with SUPRAM environmental expert (technical staff). Minas Gerais, 22 May 2015.
- 102.
Minas Gerais. Minutes of the 90th URC Jequitinhonha ordinary meeting. Diamantina, 11 December 2014, lines 228–235.
- 103.
For more detail on different resistance configurations, see De Oliveira Vieira (2015).
- 104.
“Fórum de Desenvolvimento Sustentável CMD”, in Portuguese.
- 105.
The digital archives of the forum are accessible upon approval by the forum administrators.
- 106.
Documento de manifestação da comunidade conceicionense com questionamentos e solicitação de esclarecimentos sobre o Eia/Rima (mina a céu aberto) do Empreendimento Mineração Minas-Rio da MMX na região de Conceição do Mato Dentro (on file with the author). To date this document forms a reference document for resistance groups, as many of the problems it articulates persist and are materializing now. Environmental analysts of SUPRAM confirmed many of the critiques in their technical Opinion to the preliminary license.
- 107.
The issuance of the preliminary license in December 2008 marked the beginning of the demobilization of the FórumCMD. A founding member of the FórumCMD reported, however, that even before, supporters of the mining project had attempted to demobilize resistance initiatives. For example, by announcing inexistent meetings of the FórumCMD, or informing the population that a meeting that would take place had been cancelled. Even the organization of the seminar mentioned above was, according to members of the FórumCMD, very difficult, once some of the invited experts received calls informing them that their lives would be at risk if they came to Conceição do Mato Dentro (Interview with one of the founders of the Fórum Desenvolvimento Sustentável CMD, Belo Horizonte, 27 May 2015).
- 108.
- 109.
A technical opinion by the “Studies Group in Environmental Thematics” (Grupo de Estudos em Temáticas Ambientais, GESTA) was added to the case file on 18 September 2013. The opinion mentions that this activist research group had been studying and supporting the affected families of the Minas-Rio project in Conceição do Mato Dentro since 2011.
- 110.
A first initiative had requested a thematic hearing (about rights violations in the mining sector) at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in 2016. See Oliveira A, Comissão Interamericana denuncia Brasil à OEA por tragédia em Mariana. El País, 07 June 2016, https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2016/06/07/politica/1465319140_029773.html (last accessed 1 October 2018).
- 111.
McTaggart as cited in Reason and Bradbury (2001), p. 1.
- 112.
- 113.
Influenced by decades of social mobilization and by the critiques of Paulo Freire, extensão, which literally translates as extension, acquired a different meaning in Brazilian public universities. It refers to the insertion of universities (including their practices and research agendas) within communities, as well as opening the university (and the knowledge it builds through research and through teaching and learning) to these communities. Ideally, extension projects go much beyond science outreach. They bring the university closer to the communities and the communities closer to the university, in a process that enables both to generate new knowledge, relying on traditional knowledge as well as on scientific knowledge, and aiming to overcome the theory-practice divide. Extension embodies an ethical commitment of universes with the communities with whom they work and develop projects, acknowledging their cultural diversity, advocating social justice and pursuing emancipation. Indeed, according to the Brazilian Constitution of 1988, Article 207, the universities must observe the principle of inseparability between teaching, research and extension. For more on the concept of extension in Brazil, see De Paula (2013), p. 18.
- 114.
- 115.
Brum, E, Massacre anunciado na Anapu de Dorothy Stang. El País, 30 July 2018, https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2018/07/30/opinion/1532957463_995238.html (last accessed on 9 August 2018).
- 116.
From CMD’s nearly 20,000 inhabitants, the resistance was most of the time organized around less than ten persons, who were decisive in sharing information on the project, on actions of the local municipal authorities and about the environmental licensing and in sparking mobilization.
- 117.
Hale (2006), p. 98, for example, explicitly claims that the difference of activist research to other approaches must be seen in the methods all along the research process.
- 118.
Or activist researchers; it is not an objective of this chapter to differentiate these approaches.
- 119.
Cancian (1993), p. 100.
- 120.
Creswell (2014), p. 6.
- 121.
Although the terms worldview and positionality are closely related, they are not synonymous. A person’s positionality encompasses relevant aspects of her identity, such as age, gender, socio-economic status, educational background, colour of the skin, ethnical identification, etc. All of those also play a role in how this person will be able to conduct her field research, especially when it involves t relating to other persons, as is the case when we do interviews (even close-ended surveys), and participant observation.
- 122.
Despite an academic rhetoric prone to hide the researcher (the author) in an attempt to mark—also in the language—the impersonality and distance considered essential in the scientific realm (a rhetoric that is also characteristic of jurisprudence and legal practice, we could add), real persons are behind all scientific research and reflexivity is important whether we do action research or not.
- 123.
Freire (2002), p. 37.
- 124.
Gordon et al. (2003), p. 370.
- 125.
Hale (2006), p. 104.
- 126.
- 127.
The final document reporting many cases of rights violations in the mining sector in Brazil was written by a network of human rights organizations from different parts of the country. My contribution via Coletivo Margarida Alves was exclusively related to the Minas-Rio case. The full document was presented to the IACHR in June 2016 (on file with the author). The video record of the hearing is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RAfL10Jfmk#action=share (last accessed 1 October 2018). See Oliveira A, Comissão Interamericana denuncia Brasil à OEA por tragédia em Mariana. El País, 07 June 2016, https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2016/06/07/politica/1465319140_029773.html (last accessed 1 October 2018).
- 128.
Lebel and McLean (2018).
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Acknowledgements
The research on which this chapter is based would not have been possible without intense and enriching dialogue with many persons in Conceição do Mato Dentro, Diamantina and Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil, who shared their time, their knowledge and much of their daily lives with me from June 2014 to June 2015. I also thank ZEF and the DAAD for the resources and support provided to my doctoral studies and to my field research in Brazil. I thank my colleagues from the Doctoral Program of the University of Barcelona Law School and Doctor Antonio Giménez Merino for the invaluable discussions and learning opportunities that helped me to advance data analysis and writing my dissertation and for the support during the elaboration of this chapter.
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Barbosa Pereira, A.R. (2019). Taking Sides in Scientific Research? The Struggle for the Right to Participate in Public Decision-Making Related to a Mining Project in Brazil. In: Feichtner, I., Krajewski, M., Roesch, R. (eds) Human Rights in the Extractive Industries. Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Rights, vol 3. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11382-7_15
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