Power relations and their reflections to the environment and life

Abstract

The relations between human societies come from intense power relations, causing political, economic and socio-environmental conflicts. Conflicts revolve around law, rules and profitability. Foucault's view of power confronts the conventional view that power resides in the state and is operationalized by its institutions, among them, Law. In Brazil, environmental protection is a relatively new area, which has the National Environmental Policy Law (PNMA in Portuguese) as its historical mark. In this context, the highlighted issue in the article is: How do power relations validate decisions and positionings on subjects involving life and environment? Under what motivations do the power relations allow permissible the recurrence of events as recently occurred in Mariana (2015) and Brumadinho (2019) in the State of Minas Gerais? Resources from the bibliographic and documentary research were used. The overall goal is to understand the power relations that validate decisions and positionings on subjects involving life and environment. Under this light, it was based on ideas and investigations of Michel Foucault (1926 - 1984). However, it was in the 1970s, through the publications about power in social relations that the author stood out as one of the most renowned philosophers of the current cultural view. It is concluded that it is from understanding the power relations that may come out a perspective of development in which environment and life can be integrated and indissoluble in its multiplicity of manifestation and, above all, in its preservation.

Keywords: Power relations. Environment. Development. Life.