Alcântara Launch Center and its socio-environmental impacts: four decades of quilombola exclusion

Abstract

This article sought to analyze the process of installing the Alcântara Launch Center (CLA) in order to understand which aspects were agreed upon with the population, related to everything that was and was not contemplated over time. This research is interdisciplinary, exploratory, quantitative and qualitative in nature, and phenomenological. The research field was the municipality of Alcântara, MA, especially the seven agro-villages to which the residents were relocated when the CLA was first installed. At the end of our analysis, it became clear that the results of the CLA construction process in a municipality with a majority of quilombolas brought severe impacts of a cultural, ethnic, social, economic, and environmental nature, as can be observed from data such as social indicators, field data, and surveys of the region's socioeconomic and cultural conditions, as evidenced by social indicators, field reports, and changes in the living conditions of local communities.