Resumo

FREITAS, Maria do Carmo Soares de; MINAYO, Maria Cecília de Souza; PENA, Paulo Gilvane Lopes  e  SANTOS, Neuza Maria Miranda dos. An Ill Environment: Meanings Attributed to Industrial Contamination in Ilha de Maré, Bahia, Brazil. Desacatos [online]. 2012, n.39, pp.73-88. ISSN 2448-5144.

In order to comprehend the meanings attributed to industrial pollution by local inhabitants, an ethnographic approach has been used in this study.We analyze the environmental impact on the basis of local inhabitants’ perception of chemical contamination, feared by the population.Their statements reveal possible analytical categories associated to mythical connotations. Chemical contamination is characterized as an environmental disease, whose menace has shape,colors and smells coming from outside and spreading through the mangroves,the towns and the ocean. Explanatory models of causality and of semantics grounded on popular wisdom are manifest in the expressions of the inhabitants.The implications of such a phenomenon impinge upon the population’s cultural and socioeconomic situation, modifying their working conditions, their eating habits, and their health.

Palavras-chave : meanings of industrial contamination; environmental anthropology; contamination; disease; traditional fishermen.

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