O rio que embaçou no horizonte: narrativas e percepções sobre os impactos urbanos da construção e operação do terminal da Cargill em Santarém - PA

Abstract

This study investigates the urban impacts of the installation and operation of the Cargill terminal in Santarém, Pará (Brazil), focusing on the socio-environmental transformations resulting from this intervention and the lived experiences of the city’s residents. The research emerged from an ethnographic approach initiated in 2017, aiming to understand changes in urban landscapes through the narratives of residents who, prior to the terminal’s installation, lived in the former Vera Paz beach area and were displaced to the current Laguinho neighborhood. From this perspective, the study reflects on the effects of the eradication of this leisure and sociability space, expanding the analysis to the economic dynamics of agribusiness, the expansion of soy monoculture, and the impacts of large infrastructure projects. Based on a qualitative methodology, the research employs oral narratives, life histories, interviews, poems, songs, and document analysis to explore how the transformations caused by the Cargill terminal have shaped new forms of sociability and resistance. The dissertation interrogates how processes of economic exploitation reshape urban and environmental dynamics, addressing not only economic consequences but also impacts on the "sensible" (affective, sensory, and symbolic dimensions) and the subjectivities of residents. The study also highlights the reconfiguration of the "sensible," symbolized by the disappearance of the former Vera Paz beach, and how this represents an infringement on the right to the city. It reveals an acceleration of socio-environmental violence, rendered invisible by mainstream media, and proposes an interdisciplinary lens for analyzing urban issues in the Amazon, integrating emotional and cultural dimensions often neglected in such debates. Ultimately, this work aims to pave the way for deeper investigations into Amazonian landscapes and the new forms of struggle and belonging emerging from these socio-environmental conflicts.