Rethinking governance through Samarco's dam collapse in Brazil: a critique from the STS perspective

This paper is based on a study of the Fundao dam collapse in Minas Gerais, Brazil, and it aims to analyze a widely used and rarely problematized concept in the corporate and, increasingly, in the public policy world: governance. Considering, in this case, the environmental governance that originated the disaster and the subsequent remediation governance, source of profound inequity, I try to extract its main problematics. In fact, the critical literature on governance systems points to the forced depoliticization of political decisions related to the transfer of public responsibilities to the private sector as the main issue. Based on the case, I intend to argue that the hegemony of techno-scientific solutions in eminently political contexts founds the aforementioned depoliticization, adding to and therefore aggravating the asymmetries of power already configured in terms of race and social class.

Automated summary

This paper examines the concept of governance in the corporate and public policy world by analyzing the Fundao dam collapse in Brazil. It argues that the depoliticization of political decisions in governance systems, particularly in the transfer of public responsibilities to the private sector, is a major issue. Using the case study, the paper demonstrates how the dominance of techno-scientific solutions in political contexts contributes to depoliticization and exacerbates existing power asymmetries based on race and social class.