The reject and its various brands: health of Civil Defense workers in the rupture of the Fundão dam

Abstract

From the socio-environmental disaster that took place on November 5th, 2015 in Mariana (MG), the study sought to understand the activity of Civil Defense technicians who acted in the disaster, aiming to collaborate for actions of worker’s health surveillance. The reflection that develops here is part of the effort to give visibility to the activity of those professionals who work in conditions permeated with unpredictability and pressure. The study has as references the contributions from the field of Occupational Health and ergology. This is an empirical research with a qualitative approach, conducted through direct observation and semi-structured individual interviews with Civil Defense professionals. The analysis of the results was organized in two large sections with their respective consequences: the first brings a contextualization of the disaster narrated by the several professionals who worked during it; the second focuses on the challenges and
perspectives that civil defense agents have been able to draw from the disaster. Faced with the complexity of situations and the unpredictable dimension of risk, civil defense agents are constantly called upon to ‘renormatize’ and operate choices based on their history and their values to deal with environmental infide