State governance and (mis)governance after 30 years of regional planning in Rio Grande do Sul: there was a disaster in the middle of the road

tinha um desastre no meio do caminho

Abstract

Declaring a state of public calamity implies formal recognition of the state's inability to govern. In the period following the extreme event, insecurity about the re-establishment of law and order spreads. Uncertainties and insecurities do not exist on their own, but are produced through narratives forged in the heat of events that will shape the memory and identity of the communities affected. In this essay we seek to record and contextualize narratives constructed during the rains and flooding of April/May 2024 in Rio Grande do Sul that emphasized the erosion of state governance. This is an instigating phenomenon in a state renowned for its historic capacity for planning, both state and private, whose expertise in the direction of economic growth has been exported to other regions. We sought to reconstruct the versions of the event based on primary public documents. From a decolonial perspective, in addition to studies of the global North, we used the comparative analysis of disasters in Asia by S. Bandopadhyayde. For this author, there is no contradiction between governance and disasters, because disasters reinforce state organizations that seek to normalize events in order to preserve, or even expand, their decision-making power and access to new resources. In this sense, recording and debating narratives during disasters becomes part of resilience.