Webinar | Voices from the Brink: Unveiling the Human and Environmental Cost Behind Vale's Mining Disaster - 2025
About the Session
The Cost of Vale, a 2024 documentary produced by Institu Guaicuy, will be the focus of an upcoming discussion hosted by the WageIndicator Foundation and the #DemocratizingWork network.
The Cost of Vale was the first Brazilian documentary to explore the Self-Rescue Zone (ZAS), a critical area at risk of destruction in the event of a dam collapse. Centered on the community of Antônio Pereira in Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais, the film highlights the social and environmental devastation caused by Vale’s mining activities. Through personal stories, it showcases the struggles of families living in abandoned homes, facing mental health challenges, and fighting for justice in the shadow of potential disaster.
This session will explore the key themes and insights from The Cost of Vale, emphasizing how the exploitation of labor, environmental destruction, and corporate governance failures are deeply interconnected. Currently, nine years after the Fundão Dam collapse in Mariana and six years after the Córrego do Feijão Dam collapse in Brumadinho — tragedies that claimed more than 300 lives and caused unprecedented environmental and social damage throughout the country — Independent Technical Advisory bodies (guaranteed by law) are at risk. Once again, the rights of those affected by tailings dams and large-scale mining projects are under threat.
Date and Time
Thursday, 13th March | 2 - 3:30 PM CET
Our Speakers
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Session Chair
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Neera Chandhoke is the Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Equity Studies, Delhi. She has written widely on civil society, secularism, revolutionary violence, democracy and the constitution. Her latest publications include We, The People, And Our Constitution, and Nelson Mandela: Peace Through Reconciliation. She regularly writes for newspapers and online news portals. She is currently working on The Political Vocabularies of Freedom in India. |
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Speaker
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Flávia Souza Máximo Pereira is a core member #DemocratizingWork's research group and the Coordinator of the Research group “Ressaber: Decolonial thinking” at Federal University of Ouro Preto, Brazil. She has a Ph.D. in Labour Law from Università degli Studi di Roma - Tor Vergata in a Cotutelle Agreement with Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Flavia researches decoloniality and Labour Law, disruptive forms of workers' struggle and intersectional gender violence. Currently, she is part of a comparative research partnership with Carleton University on Antônio Pereira, Brazil and Sudbury, Canada, both territories impacted by mining. |
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Speaker
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Ania Zbyszewska is an Associate Professor in Law and Work in the Department of Law and Legal Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. Her interdisciplinary, socio-legal research focuses on regulation of work as a socio-ecological process and engages with feminist and political ecology approaches to re/consider the interface of work and environmental regulation and explore regulatory alternatives that facilitate more sustainable work and livelihoods. |
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Speaker
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Karina Gomes Barbosa teaches courses related to journalism, gender, and human rights, at the Federal University of Ouro Preto (UFOP). At UFOP, she coordinates a gender and sexuality media watch project called Ariadnes. She holds a Doctorate and a Master's degree in Social Communication from the University of Brasília (UnB). Karina is a feminist researcher in the fields of gender, sexuality, and media, with a particular focus on gender-based violence, girlhood, and human rights violations in journalism and audiovisual media. Since 2015, she has been working with communities affected by the Fundão Dam collapse in Mariana, engaging in research and extension activities, as well as journalistic projects. |
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Speaker
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Hariane Alves has been the coordinator of the Social Communication team at the Independent Technical Advisory Body of Antônio Pereira (Guaicuy Institute) since 2022. She is the author of the book "A Cloud Approaches the Window," the story of a family from Bento Rodrigues affected by Brazil's largest socio-environmental disaster (the Fundão Dam collapse). Hariane has been working with communities impacted by mining dams since 2015. Starting in 2016, she began researching topics related to the environment and the damages suffered in areas affected by predatory mining, with publications in Observatório Lei.A, Instituto Guaicuy, and Projeto Manuelzão. She participated in coordinating the The Cost of Vale documentary. |
