Contested Reparation: Self-Organization in Post-Disaster Minas Gerais, Brazil
Extractivist practices in Latin America have historically resulted in environmental disasters, displacing communities and contaminating land and water. Reparation efforts typically prioritize technical and legal frameworks, often neglecting community participation and failing to address collective losses and spatial justice. My research examines how affected communities experience these processes following two mining disasters in Minas Gerais, Brazil: Fundão (2015) and Córrego do Feijão (2019) dam ruptures. With the Global Graduate Research grant, my Fall 2026 fieldwork will document lived reparation through interviews, oral histories, ethnographic walks, and archival research, providing grounded insights for planners engaged in disaster and reparation governance.
