Socio-environmental Disasters, Memory of Violence, and Orality

a case study based on the account of Joseli dos Santos

Abstract

Through the analysis of events and the life trajectory of Joseli dos Santos, a native of Ceará born in 1969 and the mother of the author of this work, a widow in the early 2000s who experienced socio-environmental disasters in Rio de Janeiro, where she moved at the age of 18, this article aims to discuss the fundamental and devastating role of small and medium-sized disasters that routinely occur in Brazil. Unlike major disasters, these events gain an even greater degree of invisibility, both in terms of the events themselves and their victims. The study employs theoretical contributions from Environmental History, such as the concepts of Socio-environmental Disasters and Environmental Justice, as well as Oral History, particularly to analyze the discourse and trajectory of Joseli. Furthermore, the study seeks to incorporate and challenge the idea of "latency" in cases like this, drawing on discussions in Memory Studies, violence, and trauma in history. The goal is to emphasize the potential devastation of small and medium socio-environmental disasters, draw attention to their inherently narrative dimension, and refute, from a perspective other than the classical ones, the issue of latency through contact with nature as experienced in the cases under consideration.