Aguas da vida

The objective of this thesis is to understand the water administration processes built by excluded rural populations, analyzing the community dynamics of appropriation, regulation, use and conservation of the resource.Presented are results of ethnographic research done in rural communities in the Jequitinhonha valley, the Mantiqueira range and São Francisco river valley in the state of Minas Gerais.Exposed is the perception, by farming communities, of water as a common good and their conflicts with the tendency of government and companies to define water as an economic good, indicating that divergence provokes friction between local cultures and public policy.It is concluded that, in the rural space, the prioritization of water as an economic good limited the multiple and customary uses made by the local population and resulted in social exclusion and conflicts for the resource

Appropriation · Common-pool resource · Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management · Urban Development and Societal Issues · Water Governance and Infrastructure