The introduction of scientific explanations of environmental phenomena: forms of conflict between the Hydroelectric company and affected social groups – Tucuruí, Pará

Abstract

This article will analyze the shifts in the organizational strategies of the populations in Tucuruí, Pará, Brazil, during the period of intervention of the hydroelectric company Eletronorte in this region, that shifted when the environmental impacts became more visibly evident. The methodological approach of this study is the construction of a memory of events, based on the analysis of the collection of archives that are generated within processes of social interaction. The variety of documents produced provides a greater understanding of the evolution of organizational tactics, since the first expressions of resistance of affected groups during the early phases of the company’s intervention, to the gradual consolidation of a large-reaching and diversified social movement, that has as its peak the creation of strategies of political action in the face of drastic alternations in the social and environmental context. At the heart of the conflicts that play out between those who coordinate the interventions and those who are subjected to the visible and invisible effects of this modus operandi of the business world, an option is made for the scientific explanation of environmental effects through the development of investigations and the careful documentation of empirical data. Such scientific methods become the most potent tool used by the affected social movements during confrontations of the institutional tactics and strategies implemented by the Eletronorte company and its allied forces.