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

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.