#15 March 13, 2025

« Voices from the brink: Unveiling the human and environmental cost of Vale’s mining disaster », Discussing the documentary « The Cost of Vale » by Law Assistant Professor and #DW Core Group Member Flavia Maximo.

Time: 5am San Francisco-Vancouver | 7am Mexico City | 8am Bogotá-NYC-Montréal | 10am Santiago | 2pm Paris | 3pm Johannesburg | 6.30pm New Delhi | 8pm Jakarta | 12am Sydney 

Location: online (registration link to be announced soon)

Organizers: #DemocratizingWork and WageIndicator Foundation 

Speakers: Flavia Maximo (UFOP),  Karina Gomes Barbosa (UFOP), Ania Zbyszewska (Carleton University) and Hariane Santos Alves (Guaicuy Institute Brazil).

Chair: Neera Chandhoke (Distinguished Fellow, Centre for Equity Studies, Delhi) as chair

In 2024, a documentary, The Cost of Vale, will be the focus of a critical discussion. The film exposes the forced removal of families from areas at risk of mining dam collapses, the devastation of their ways of living, and the systemic failures of corporate governance that prioritize profit over people and the planet.

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.

Flávia Souza Máximo Pereira is a member of the core group of research “Democratizing work”. Ph.D. in Labour Law from Università degli Studi di Roma – Tor Vergata in a Cotutelle Agreement with Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil. She is also the coordinator of the Research group “Ressaber: Decolonial thinking” at Federal University of Ouro Preto, Brazil. As coordinator of the Ombudsman’s Office at the Federal University of Ouro Preto, she developed the first Brazilian regulations to combat gender harassment at the university, receiving an award from the Ministry of Education for her work. She does research in decoloniality and Labour Law, especially in feminisms, disruptive forms of workers’ struggle and intersectional gender violence. Currently, she works in partnership with Carleton University on a comparative research in Antônio Pereira, the city of the documentary that will be discussed today, and in Sudbury, in Canada, both territories explored by mining, investigating the legal nexus between labour, nature and community from a decolonial ecofeminist perspective.

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.

Karina Gomes Barbosa teaches courses related to journalism, gender, and human rights, as well as to journalistic narratives at the Federal University of Ouro Preto (UFOP). She also 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), where she also earned Bachelor’s degrees in Journalism and International Relations. She 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. She is currently the scientific director of the Brazilian Journalism Teaching Association (Abej) and a member of scientific networks dedicated to childhood, youth, and communication, and to gender, intersectionality, and journalism.

Ana Virginia Moreira Gomes graduated in Journalism from the Federal University of Ouro Preto (UFOP) and in Business Administration from the Faculdade do Sul da Bahia (FASB), with an MBA in Digital Marketing from the Faculdade Metropolitana do Estado de São Paulo (FAMEESP). She has been the coordinator of the Social Communication team at the Independent Technical Advisory Body of Antônio Pereira (Guaicuy Institute) since 2022. She is also the author of the book « A Cloud Approaches the Window, » which narrates the story of a family from Bento Rodrigues affected by Brazil’s largest socio-environmental disaster (the Fundão Dam collapse in Mariana, Minas Gerais). 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. As a journalist and press officer, she has collaborated on stories published in outlets such as Estado de São Paulo, Estado de Minas, Jornal O Tempo, and Folha de S. Paulo. She has also supported and contributed to Jornal A Sirene — a communication outlet produced by residents of communities affected by the Fundão Dam collapse. Additionally, she participated in coordinating the documentary « The Cost of Vale – Voices from the Brink of Disaster, » the first Brazilian documentary about people displaced from a Self-Salvation Zone (ZAS). 

Neera Chandhoke, Distinguished Fellow, Centre for Equity Studies, Delhi. Formerly Professor of Political Science, University of Delhi. She has written widely on civil society, secularism, revolutionary violence, democracy and the constitution. Her latest publications are We, The People, And Our Constitution, Delhi, Speaking Tiger 2023, Nelson Mandela: Peace Through Reconciliation, Routledge 2022, Violence in Our Bones: Mapping the Deadly Fault Lines Within Indian Society, Aleph, 2021, Rethinking Pluralism, Secularism and Tolerance: Anxieties of Coexistence, Delhi Sage Publishers 2019, Democracy and Revolutionary Politics, London, Bloomsbury, 2015, Contested Secessions; Rights, Self-Determination, Democracy and Kashmir, Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2012, Conceits of Civil Society, Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2009, Beyond Secularism: The Rights of Religious Minorities, Delhi Oxford University Press, 1999, State and Civil Society: Explorations in Political Theory, Delhi, Sage Publishers, 1995. She regularly writes for newspapers and online news portals. She is currently working on The Political Vocabularies of Freedom in India.