Belo Monte: an absence’s cartography – the affected riverside communities

Abstract

Through a critical perspective, this article aims to use cartographic resources to analyze the processes of deterritorialization and reterritorialization suffered by the population that lives by the river, which is located on the counties on the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Power Station’s influence. The study’s intention, based on official cartographic representations analysis, is to identify not only how the impacted population is shown in these representations, but also the absences restrained therein, especially the ones related to the conflicts unleashed by the expropriation and resettlement processes, known as the main conflicts between developmental policies and vulnerable population, antagonistic agents between the economic hegemony and social resistance.