For constructing the Salto Santiago Hydroelectric Power Plant, located at the central-southern state of Parana, Brazil, in the 1970s, there was a need to displace the riparian people who lived there to make way for the reservoir. This paper aims to analyze the role of different organizations in the identity (re)construction of the riparian people compulsorily displaced from their territories to make way for this reservoir. For this, one takes into account that identity is constructed and reconstructed within the social space through the Other's desire which, being acknowledged as legitimate by the subject, internalizes his practices, actions, and worldview and, therefore, his habitus. In methodological terms, one conducted a qualitative study involving documentary survey and semi-structured interviews using the oral history techniques with the riparian people and representatives of key organizations currently found on site. The collected data were interpreted through the rules of Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics, interconnecting the individual to the general perspective, and vice-versa, as well as the objective to the subjective perspective. Finally, in terms of conclusions, based on the story told by the riparian people and representatives of the organizations under study, one shows how the identity (re)construction of riparian people took place at that space. Thus, it was possible to find out how the Salto Santiago Power Plant construction and the resultant displacement of riparian people produced, due to entry of new organizations in that territory, changes in their identities.
Identity; Symbolism; Organizations; Hydroelectric power plant; Compulsory displacement