The 1974 floods as social drama: the relationship between perceptions of risk, conflict and gentrification

Abstracts

O artigo é baseado em uma pesquisa etnográfica sobre a reconfiguração socioespacial do município de Tubarão após a enchente de 1974. Entendida como um drama social, a enchente proporcionou um encontro entre indivíduos de camadas sociais distintas, que estabeleceram relações de solidariedade, em um período em que as hierarquias sociais foram temporariamente suspensas. De acordo com a pesquisa, a percepção de risco de novas inundações levou moradores das classes média e alta a procurarem locais de residência em regiões mais altas da cidade, como o Morro da Caixa e seus arredores, antes habitadas apenas por moradores de classes populares. O artigo conclui que a presença destes moradores, ocasionada principalmente pelo risco após a enchente, representou mudanças da representação da localidade, além do estabelecimento de relações de conflito entre moradores de classes sociais distintas e de um processo de gentrificação no local.

Enchente; Desastre; Risco; Drama social; Gentrificação

The 1974 floods as social drama: the relationship between perceptions of risk, conflict and gentrification

Viviane Kraieski de Assunção

Professor of the Graduate Program in Environmental Sciences (PPGCA) of the University of the Extreme South of Santa Catarina (UNESC). Held doctorade degree at the Graduate Program in Social Anthropology (PPGAS) of the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), and served as Visiting Researcher at the Institute of Latin American Studies (ILAS) at Columbia University. She conducted postdoctoral studies at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Email: [e-mail]

ABSTRACT

The article is based on ethnographic research on the socio-spatial reconfiguration of the city of Tubarão after the flood of 1974. Taken as a social drama, the flood provided a meeting between individuals from different social classes, who established relations of solidarity, in a period that social hierarchies were temporarily suspended. According to the survey, the perception of risk of further flooding led middle and high class individuals to seek places of residence in the higher regions of the city, like the Morro da Caixa and its surroundings, which were inhabited only by residents of the popular classes. The article concludes that the presence of these residents, caused mainly by the perception of risk after the flood, represented a change of representation of the location, besides the establishment of relations of conflict between residents of different social classes and a process of gentrification at the neighborhood.

Keywords: Flood; Disaster; Risk; Social drama; gentrification.

RESUMEN

El artículo se basa en la investigación etnográfica de la configuración social y espacial de la ciudad de Tubarão después de la inundación de 1974. Comprendida como un drama social, la inundación ha promovido un encuentro entre personas de distintos estratos sociales, que estableció relaciones de solidaridad, en un período que las jerarquías sociales fueron suspendidos temporalmente. Según la encuesta, la percepción del riesgo de una nueva inundación llevó a los residentes de classes media y alta a buscar hogares de residencia en las regiones más altas de la ciudad, como el Morro da Caixa y sus alrededores antes habitados solamente por los residentes de las clases populares. El artículo concluye que la presencia de estos residentes, causada principalmente por el riesgo de otras inundaciones, representó un cambio de la representación de la ubicación, además del establecimiento de las relaciones de conflicto entre los residentes de distintas clases sociales y la promoción de un proceso de gentrificación en el sitio.

Palabras clave: Inundación; Desastre; Riesgo; Drama social; Gentrificación.

Introduction

This article analyzes the floods which took place in 1974 in the municipality of Tubarão, in the southern region of Santa Catarina state, Brazil, and their impacts on the city's socio-spatial configuration. From a sociological point of view, these floods can be described as a disaster (Nasreen, 2004). The floods were not only a social phenomenon but "a non-routine event which provokes social disruption, where the degree of its impact largely reflects the type and degree of preparation of a particular community to deal with natural and technological risks" (Ribeiro, 1995).

From this point of view, the concept of disasters cannot be described exclusively in terms of natural phenomena, but should also consider associations with social and cultural aspects (Quarantelli, 1998). Disasters, therefore, can be defined in terms of their association with a series of factors (Jena, 2004; Quarantelli, 1981). On the one hand, they disrupt routines, habits and daily rituals and may lead subjects affected to question the established ways of making sense of the world (Confalonieri, 2003). On the other hand, they can result in the search for strategies for the self-protection of individuals and groups based on an altruistic point of view (Thorngurb et al., 2005).

Gilbert (1998) highlights that the concept of disasters can be approached from the point of view of three paradigms, each established in different periods. The first paradigm, originating from a war model, puts forward the notion of disasters as the outcome of the actions of a threatening external agent. The second paradigm was developed by European social scientists, particularly from the 1970s onwards, who argued that disasters are a social expression of vulnerability. The third paradigm proposes that disasters generate uncertainties, which not only come about due to a lack of information, but also because a lack of co-ordination between different fields of knowledge make the process of formulating preventive measures against these threats more difficult.

Scholars from different academic areas and various disciplines have employed these different perspectives to study the consequences of disasters on groups living in areas considered to be "at risk". Some studies investigate the building of shelters for people made homeless, the removal of groups from risk areas and the relationship between the vulnerability of individuals to disasters and social inequality (see, for example, Neves, 2008; Siena e Valencio, 2006; Valencio, 2008a, 2008b; Vargas, 2006). These studies show that the concept of vulnerability helps us to understand how individuals and social groups are unequally exposed to risks, a factor already understood with regard to territorial organization and de-territorialization processes (Haesbaert, 2004).

These theories are discussed here from a different perspective, focusing on a process which moves in the opposite direction to studies which analyze the consequences of disasters on vulnerable groups or the relationship between these groups. Based on ethnographic research, it is argued that subsequent to the 1974 floods in Tubarão, the neighbourhoods of Morro da Caixa and surrounding areas, such as Morro do Caeté and Morro do Becker, which had previously been inhabited by the poorer populations, were sought out by members of the middle and upper classes who were concerned that further floods would affect the municipality. During the floods, the homes of Morro da Caixa residents were not affected and even served as shelter for residents from other neighbourhoods and social classes in the city.

This disaster is not only analyzed as a natural and social phenomenon, but as a social drama (Turner, 1982, 2008), exposing social hierarchies and promoting the re-organization of actors from different social classes. The post-flood occupation of Morroⁱ da Caixa by members of the middle and upper-classes led to changes in the representation of the area which had previously been known only as a residential area for the poorer population. The research revealed that this socio-spatial reconfiguration led to a type of sociability mediated by tensions and conflicts between residents from different social strata - "the poor" and "the rich" - in the words of my interlocutors. The research also concluded that the perception of risk with regard to new disasters is linked to the gentrification process which took place in the area and indirectly led to capitalist forms of reproduction. An example is the emergence, in the area studied, of supermarkets, substituting small local shops.

Methodological Strategies

This article is based on an ethnographic study which took place in two different periods. The first occurred in 2006 when fieldwork was conducted with the residents of Morro da Caixa. The ethnographic work revealed tensions between residents from different social classes and there are reports about the change in the socioeconomic profile of the area's residents subsequent to the 1974 floods. During the second period, in 2014, in-depth interviews were conducted with the older residents of Morro da Caixa who had experienced the floods in the city. The aim was to understand their experiences of the 1974 floods and highlight the changes in the occupation patterns of the area after the floods. The older residents were aged between 52 and 84. Residents who moved to Morro da Caixa subsequent to the 1974 floods were also heard, resulting in a total of 21 in-depth interviews.

The 1974 Floods

The 1974 floods influenced the history of the entire municipality of Tubarão - a town located in the southern region of Santa Catarina state - and that of its residents. However, these were not the first floods to occur in the municipality. There are accounts in the local press of floods which resulted from the overflow of the Tubarão River during the 19th and 20th centuries.ⁱⁱ Freitas (2001: 12) refers to one of these floods which occurred in 1887, "the residents of the city were already used to witnessing floods and knew that the waters would not go over a certain level". A similar view is presented by Amadio Vettoretti, a historian, (1992: 225): "The residents of the city of Tubarão cannot remember how many previous floods there have been because in the last decades these events have only taken place in rural areas". Freitas (2001) states that in the three decades prior to the event which occurred in 1974, floods were frequent and could happen at any time of the year as a result of rain, mainly affecting agricultural production. Residents were largely unaware of these incidents as they were restricted to rural areas. This explains why "many considered the 1974 floods as an unprecedented event, and for some, they even amounted to punishment" (Vettoretti, 1992: 224).

Given that they mainly affected the agricultural areas of the municipality, flooding prior to 1974 did not preclude the occupation of the city's riverside areas. As Porto (1995) shows, residential districts were built in riverside areas and lowland plots close to the rivers, increasing the risk of floods affecting the population residing in the municipality. In Tubarão, the river crosses the centre of the city, where most commercial establishments are located, as well as a residential area which is highly valued by the property market.

In 1974, the heavy rain on Friday 22 March and on Saturday 23 March had given rise to flooding in the lower regions of the municipality which were already in a state of alert. According to some authors, the floods had been caused by a combination of a number of factors, of which the most important were: a prolonged period of rain during March of that year, causing the ground to become waterlogged, and the "lestada", the name given to the coastal rains and winds, which caused the waters of the Tubarão River to be impounded in the Serra Geral mountains. In addition, spring tides also made it difficult for the waters to flow, and finally, there was the silting of the river (Vettoretti 1992; Cargnin, 2000). These factors, in particular the heavy rains and the "lestada", are present in the discourses of the residents of Tubarão who experienced the flooding. They claim that strong winds prevented the waters from the river flowing out to sea, contributing towards the overflow of the river.

The strong currents destroyed houses, streets and the railway station's tracks. The city was left without electricity and telephones. Water levels started to fall two days after the floods. According to official data, the 1974 floods caused the death of 199 people and displaced 60,000 of Tubarão's total population of 70,000. The number of deaths, however, is questioned by the residents who experienced the floods. At the time, the press reported that estimates of deaths would reach the thousands. During our research, interviewees reported that mass graves were opened to bury bodies. They also cited that a large number of people disappeared, a fact that is not confirmed by official documentation.

According to older residents, a military police commander banned Tubarão's radio broadcasting company from transmitting information about the floods to prevent panic. Many blamed the deaths on a lack of information provided to residents who were not aware of the seriousness of the situation. The floods led many residents to shelter on rooftops or neighbouring buildings. In addition, there were landslides in hillside areas which, according to official data, resulted in 25 deaths. However, those who experienced the floods say this number was much higher. Rescue operations and the delivery of food were coordinated by helicopters and boats belonging to the fire service.

The flood experiences of the residents of Tubarão are widely documented (Alberice, 1981; Cargnin, 2000; Enchente de 74, 2007; Feuerschette, 2004; Frasson, 2012; Freitas, 2001; Machado, 2005; Vettoretti, 1992). Some accounts are similar to the experiences collected in this study and portray the fear of the recurrence of flooding in the municipality. According to reports, fear re-surfaces during the rainy season. For example, it is reasonably common during prolonged periods of rain for residents to go down to the banks of the Tubarão to check the water level.

The disaster as social drama

The accounts described in this study of those who experienced the floods concur that during the period of floods there was strong solidarity between those affected. "There were no poor or rich people... everyone needed to help each other", said one of the female residents of Morro da Caixa who told me that during the flooding she sheltered approximately 20 people in her home, including relatives, friends and strangers. This was a common experience for many of the residents living in the higher areas of the city who lived through the disaster. Mutual help and the suspension of class divisions brought people from different economic strata together in the same physical space. This period could be thought of as a time of communitas, experienced by individuals in situations of liminality. According to Van Gennep's (1978) classic work, liminality is one of the stages of the rite of passage, described as falling between the phases of separation and re-assimilation. During the phases of this process, individuals lose their previous social status and are subsequently re-introduced into society under a new status (Turner, 1987). In Douglas' (1976) words, liminal individuals no longer have anything to structurally separate them from other individuals.

Following Turner, Dawsey explains that liminality experienced in the communitas leads individuals to think about their social positions and differences:

When day-to-day relations are suspended, it is possible to get a greater insight into the ties which bring people together. People can face each other without mediation once they are stripped of the diacritical marks which differentiate them and create opposition within the social fabric, when they are subjected to the effects of the shock which a situation of liminality creates, by-passing these marks. People once again feel they are made from the same clay, which regenerates the social and symbolic universe, as if these were the actions of a potter, working in obscurity (Dawsey, 2005, p. 266).

In addition to the states of liminality and communitas, the floods can be seen as social drama. That is, as a sequence of synchronic events which represent the interaction between normative patterns which emerge from the deep regularities of social life and a set of objectives, and the conscious struggles of individuals and groups during a particular moment (Turner, 1996, 2008). Here Turner compares social processes to onstage theatrical dramatizations which result in a climax. He argues that social dramas emerge from the "interstices of social structure" and lead actors to play roles which correspond to a symbolic inversion of the social positions and status they hold in the hierarchy of social structure (Silva, 2005).

Social drama is possible within a social system, which according to Turner is analogous to an organic system in that it operates during periods of growth and decline. It can also be the result of actions which can be interpreted as a "trial of strength between the conflicting interests of people and groups seeking to manipulate a network of social, structural and circumstantial relations, each in their own benefit" (Cavalcanti, 2007). Therefore, social processes can also show that the struggle between opposing forces "opens up a number of possibilities for action" (Cavalcanti, 2007).

In addition to analyzing the 1974 floods using the perspective of social drama, this study also highlights that relations of reciprocity can have both positive and negative effects. They encompass both trading and exchange relations in their positive sense - for example, the exchange of favours, goods and services - as well as in their negative sense - the case of wars, vengeance and kidnappings (Clastres, 1980). From this point of view social unity does not necessarily emerge from the absence of conflicts. Indeed, conflict can be a mediator of relations within a social structure (Gluckman, 1986). Thus, it is possible to think that the hierarchical relations between the residents of Tubarão were temporarily suspended during the floods, constituting a period of liminality. However, it is important to highlight that, although a state of liminality may be the anti-thesis of structure, it can also be the basis for new structures, as can be demonstrated here in the socio-spatial reconfiguration of Morro da Caixa.

I will show how residents of a higher social strata, fearing the risk of new floods, started to purchase land and properties and moved to this area. According to the residents, this has led to positive changes with regard to the representations of the area. On the other hand, there is evidence of conflicts between residents of different social backgrounds and an incipient process of gentrification.

Poor streets, rich streets

It is in the realm of the territory that social relations are hierarchized (Santos, 1996). Authors such as Velho (2002) show the association between some neighbourhoods and certain social classes or status. This can also be observed in Tubarão: in most neighbourhoods there is a concentration of a particular social class. According to Velho (2002), a hierarchy of neighbourhoods occurs only in societies where there is a strong association between place of residence and social prestige.

In Morro da Caixa, after the 1974 floods, spatial segregation was partially altered, given that upper, middle and working-class families started to inhabit the same area. From this point of view, it is important to analyze this neighbourhood within the perspective of the opposition 'encompassing-encompassed', which, according to Dumont's (1997) definition of hierarchy, governs the relationship between a particular set - or whole - and its elements. Dumont argues that hierarchical relations are structured into differentiated levels. First, there is identity between the elements, and subsequently, difference or opposition. In this way, Morro da Caixa represents the social contradictions which are widely observed in the municipality of Tubarão as a whole.

By spending time with residents, it was noticeable that many did not refer to the place where they reside as Morro da Caixa. Many residents claim that they live in the continuation of a neighbouring district, Oficinas. When giving out their address, they provide only the name of the street. Residents also explained that there is no water tank (caixa in Portuguese) in the area belonging to the company supplying the municipality with water, but that this tank is located in Fábio Silva, a neighbouring district. For this reason, it did not make sense to call their neighbourhood Morro da Caixa. It is interesting to note, according to the explanations given by the residents, that the neighbourhood has negative connotations as a place for poor families and black people. Residents are frequently defensive in relation to their neighbourhood.

"Some people have a very parochial attitude to the neighbourhood. They used to ask me: are you going to live in the Morro? But no one has ever taken anything from anyone around here. A gang was arrested for theft in a block in neighbouring Oficinas". (Marisa, 42 years)

"They used to tell me that this was not a good neighbourhood, that it was full of shady characters. But it is not the place that matters. It's the people". (Dona Isabel, 67 years)

During one of my visits to the neighbourhood, I heard one of my interlocutors say to an acquaintance on a bicycle: "I have not seen you for a while. Do you only stick to the rich streets nowadays?" Her comment caught my attention. She explained that the paved roads, where the better houses for the middle-classes are located, are known as "rich streets". Whereas, where she lives, streets are not paved, houses are simpler and they are known as "poor streets". Her daughter told me that "many people were scared of going past this particular spot". The fact that there are two different types of streets indicates that despite the fact that different social classes inhabit the same area, spatial segregation between residents still exists.

Although Morro da Caixa residents are still discriminated against and many residents refer to their own neighbourhood as "Morro", some interlocutors state that discrimination has decreased. The oldest residents reported seeing changes. According to them, Morro da Caixa was seen as a "favela" (slum), that is, it was considered a place where poor people lived and a locus for crime. They state that "even finding a job was difficult", referring to the fact that residents of the area were perceived with mistrust in other areas of Tubarão.

The accounts of older residents reflect how the Morro was seen with indifference by other inhabitants of the municipality: "It is as if the Morro did not exist. Nobody valued it", said 84-year-old Maria who has been living in the area since she was born. Joana, 64, has lived in the Morro for 40 years and claimed that "no one would come up to Morro. Only the people who lived and needed to go there, many people were scared".

According to those taking part in the study, negative representations of Morro da Caixa changed after the floods. The arrival of members of the more affluent classes to the area was accompanied by an increase in infrastructure, such as electricity (there was none before the floods in the community), public lighting, a sewage system and street paving.

The increase in the demand for properties for sale and rent in the area was noted by residents who had been living in the district before the 1974 floods:

"A few days ago a lady drove up asking if there were any houses for sale because she wanted to live here. I was left thinking: my God, now there are even people who want to live in the Morro! What a change!" (Silvana, who has lived in the area for 35 years)

"You can see that there is no more space to build. There are no empty plots. Everything is occupied. There used to be lots of space before. No one wanted to live here. They lived here because they had to, because there was no other way". (Marlene, a Morro resident for 42 years)

The demand for houses in Morro da Caixa was accompanied by an increase in property prices. All interviewees living in the Morro before the 1974 floods are sure that today they would not be able to afford a property in the area. Ana's statement reflects this view: "I live where my parents lived all their lives. Before, no one wanted to live here. Now, you can only buy a house if you're rich".

The interlocutors who participated in this research are not worried about new floods in Tubarão, because they feel safe living in a higher area, despite being close to the river. For example, George, 52, who has lived in the area since he was born: "If water reaches this place, it's because it's the end of the world. It would be like that film about the deluge".

Despite accounts of drug trafficking in the area, residents do not show fear or feel unsafe: "we don't disturb them, they don't disturb us". "Some days ago, I went past them, asked for permission to pass by and they said: of course, tiaⁱⁱⁱ!" These residents believe that the close ties in the neighbourhood make the place safer: "we all know each other here. When someone new arrives, we know straight away they're not from here".

This feeling is not shared by more affluent residents. High walls, bars on the windows, electric fences and guard dogs show how these residents try to prevent thefts and robberies. One of the people heard in the study, a retired bank worker and owner of some plots of land on top of the hill, stated that he had not yet built his house because he was worried about the lack of security in the area. He said that he bought the land fearing another flood in the municipality. When there is a prolonged period of rain, he and his wife go to their apartment in Laguna, 30 kilometres from Tubarão. According to the couple, since the floods "the city has not worked", referring to the fact that there have not been any specific policies to prevent new disasters related to floods in the municipality.

More affluent families live in houses which look like fortresses - a term coined by Caldeira (2000) to describe this type of residence, especially when these are sited within closed condominiums and are built prioritizing security, isolation, social homogeneity and the provision of equipment and services. Houses with high walls, window bars, and monitored by security cameras and specialized companies, show that residents seek to impose rules of inclusion and exclusion in the district by means of physical barriers, constituting a new form of spatial segregation, a means of distancing themselves from the less affluent social classes (Caldeira, 2000).

In addition to attempts to protect themselves against thefts and robberies, upper and middle-class residents distance themselves in terms of personal relationships with the rest of the neighbourhood. According to less affluent residents, "everyone knows everyone". They know each other's names, where they live, who their parents are and their profession. I heard many exchanges between neighbours about passers-by. They sought to find out where they lived, whose children they were or who their parents were and what they were doing there. This was a constant phenomenon during my time in the neighbourhood. As I walked the streets, residents greeted me and asked me questions. Relationships are characterized by the personal. A similar situation was observed by Prado (1987) in the municipality of Cunha, in the state of São Paulo, who concluded that "recognition is fundamental in this system. That is, recognition in terms of knowing who is who. In addition, there is trust, given that everyone is identified or readily identifiable, through their relations with someone else" (Prado, 1987:52).

This is a similar situation to that described by DaMatta in small towns. According to this author, the expression "do you know who you are talking to?", which expresses the hierarchical and authoritarian relations within Brazilian society, does not make sense. He argues that "there is no anonymity" in small towns. "The same happens in tribal societies where family position, certain family names or belonging to a particular heritage line already define someone as having certain social prerogatives " (DaMatta, 1997:70).

Relations of mutual recognition and greater proximity conflict with the attempts of more middle-class families to seek more privacy. This can be exemplified by the different ways families from different social classes raise and socialize their children. Fátima, who has cared for her nine-year-old grandson since he was a baby so that her daughter can go to work, does not like him to "play with other Morro da Caixa children". He is always near her. Fátima did not give him a bicycle as a present, fearing he would go "up the Morro". "I prefer him to go down", that is, towards the centre. According to this housewife, the contact with other children in the neighbourhood may result in the boy acquiring "bad habits" such as "swearing", "smoking" and "drinking (alcohol)". In addition, she fears the "gatherings", that is, young people coming together in the streets, causing "trouble". These "gatherings" are seen in a negative light. Some residents told me to avoid passing groups of young men, because they could "mess me around".

On the other hand, the children of the poorer population have more freedom to walk and play in the street. For another grandmother, her granddaughter should play out of the house. "I have raised all my children in the street, nothing has ever happened. They are all there, all strong". She believes that in the street children can become stronger and learn to defend themselves from dangers.

Risk and Gentrification

In terms of social drama, the floods enabled the re-structuring of the Morro da Caixa neighbourhood which started to become inhabited by different social classes. This occurred mainly because of the perception of risk of further flooding by members of the higher social classes. In 2011, a commission made up of engineers and local government politicians debated the risk of new floods reaching similar levels to those of 1974. According to the report, this is likely if the same or higher volumes of rain were to fall (Commission, 2011). According to Frasson (2012), important factors for the prevention of floods such as preserving riparian vegetation, restricting civil construction in areas subject to flooding and protecting Permanent Preservation Areas (APPs) were not considered by the commission. According to Feuerschette (2004), who was Tubarão's mayor during the 1974 floods, works to make the river deeper did not go ahead because there was a risk of buildings near the riverbank collapsing. Another idea brought up after the tragedy was to build barrages to contain the rainwater before it reaches Tubarão. Neither these nor spillways, which would have linked the Tubarão river to the Lagoa do Camacho lagoon, were built (Frasson, 2012).

According to this study's interviewees, the risk of flooding on 1974 levels still exists because the government did not implement preventive actions against new floods. In order to problematize risk perceptions, this study conceives risks as socio-cultural constructs in modern societies. The arguments of Beck and Giddens on "risk society" point to the fact that risks are socially produced and, in this way, they draw our attention to the effects of human action on the environment. According to these authors, disasters relate more to social organization than to the action of nature itself, such as prolonged periods of rain. Beck and Giddens, therefore, have helped to deconstruct the notion that disasters break with the social order of normality.

According to Beck, risks have produced the social transformations of the 20th century, and are at the same time, both the cause of social changes and the means by which social life is organized and interpreted. "Modern society has become a risk society in that it is increasingly concerned in debating, preventing and managing the risks it has produced" (Beck, 2008). According to Beck, risks do not have a concrete reality in spatial, temporal or social terms, but they do have significant political power because they can be transformed into the present, in as much as we seek to prevent them, influencing the decisions of social actors (Beck, 2006). Therefore, "the idea of an objective criteria, according to which it is possible to measure the degree of a particular risk, does not take into account the fact that risks can only be considered urgent, dangerous and real, or negligible and unreal, once they have been perceived and assessed" (Beck, 2006, p. 36).

The interviewees in this study, who moved to Morro da Caixa because they perceived the risk of new floods, cited some of the measures the municipal and state governments should implement to prevent a new disaster. Most referred to the need to deepen the river, build dams and canals. This shows that some of our interlocutors have taken ownership of technical and scientific language. Douglas (1994) argues that, differently from danger, risks have an "aura of science" and seek to provide the opportunity for specialists to make more precise or exact calculations. These notions corroborate Beck's (2006) theory in which modern society is based on technical and scientific rationality. In this case, in a "risk society" individuals live with a number of threats rooted in progress and modernization - which have led to a "culture of safety" (Giddens, 1991). The "culture of safety" has meant that risks are appropriated within contemporary society in order to produce and reproduce capital. This gives rise to new forms of capitalism, economy, global order, forms of society and personal life styles (Beck, 2006). Beck explains the relation between the social production of goods and the social production of risks. Despite the fact that risks do not affect a particular social class, he admits that these risks can reinforce the differences between different social classes, given that the more affluent classes are more able to choose better places to live, and have more access to information and security (Beck, 2007).

Changes which emerged from appropriating risks can be observed in the process of gentrification taking place in Morro da Caixa, given that this neighbourhood has become inhabited by individuals with greater purchasing power. The indirect relationship between the capitalist means of production and the social production of risk can be thus observed. As soon as I started my ethnographic work in 2007, two significant events, closely connected in time, occurred in Morro da Caixa: the opening of a supermarket in the neighbouring district of Oficinas, a few metres from the Morro and the closing down of Seu João's small fruit and vegetable store. According to the account of residents, other small shops have also recently closed in the area, a bakery and a second fruit and vegetable store. This process is described here as gentrification, given it belongs to the same set of social, economic and physical changes (Hamnet, 1991). However, it is not a classic example of this phenomenon. Gentrification is not restricted to building houses or condominiums. It can also be observed in the increase in trades and services, changing the urban landscape to attract potential consumers. Smith (2007: 73) argues that "gentrification now produces urban landscapes that can be consumed by the middle and upper classes... and that contribute to the formation of class identities across a significant class spectrum, albeit in highly differentiated ways." According to Bidou-Zachariasen (2006), gentrified neighbourhoods can become part of a new growth process.

This new growth, translated here into the closure of small shops, also represents a change in the way local residents consume. Personal relations were involved when people bought and sold food in the small shops. Dona Maria das Dores has had a bakery in the area for 30 years. Her husband is a baker. They live in a house at the back of the shop. Her two adolescent nieces work in the bakery serving the clients. In exchange, they receive school materials, clothes and are able to eat in the bakery. The two nieces alternate their work according to their school hours: one works in the afternoon and studies in the morning, whilst the other studies in the afternoon and works in the morning. Dona Maria das Dores knows all her clients. It is very common for people to buy on credit, but only those she authorizes. Relations based on personal relationships and on trust do not exist in supermarkets where it is difficult for clients to have contact with the owner when they make their purchases as they are always served by staff. Payment is made using cash, bank cards or cheques, but customers must present documents and extra information, such as telephone numbers.

Ortiz describes the same process in France when citing the work of Chombart de Lauwe on the daily lives of working-class families. He observes that these families are used to shopping in small quantities in stores close to their homes. "They are less worried about price and the quality of products and more concerned with the familiarity of the place and the pleasantness of the shopkeeper: in sociological jargon personal relations predominate over impersonal relationships" (Ortiz, 1994: 83-4).

Conclusions

More than a natural disaster, the floods which took place in 1974 in the municipality of Tubarão can be thought of in terms of a social drama in that they led to a temporary suspension of social hierarchies, introducing liminality and subsequently producing some changes to the socio-spatial configuration of the city. The perceptions of the risk - understood here as a social construct - of further floods on a level similar to those of 1974, led members of the higher social classes to seek homes in an area which had been previously identified as a neighbourhood for poor individuals and those in a marginal situation. Here, the relations between the current residents of Morro da Caixa and surrounding areas are characterized by conflict situations, from which it is possible to establish social unity (Gluckman, 1986).

It can be observed, however, that despite living in the same locality, spatial segregation was reproduced, just as it is evident in Tubarão as a whole. This segregation is portrayed by some residents as "poor streets" and "rich streets". It can also be observed that the movement of people with greater purchasing power to Morro da Caixa was appropriated by forms of capitalist reproduction, initiating a process of gentrification in the area, characterized by changes in the market and an increase in the price of properties.

Notes

ⁱⁱ Some of the previous floods were reported by the local press at the time, such as those which occurred in 1834, 1880, 1881, 1897, 1917, 1928 and 1971 (Freitas, 2001; Machado, 2005).

ⁱⁱⁱ Tia, aunt in Portuguese, here is used as a term of respect.

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i

The term "morro", may be literally translated as hill, it refers to the highest areas of towns. In the history of Brazilian cities an number of districts and localities have been called "morros". They are frequently known as residential areas for the lower-income population.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  03 Feb 2015
• Date of issue
  Dec 2014

History

• Received
  29 May 2014
• Accepted
  14 Aug 2014