Why Social Capital?

THE SOCIAL IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY AND MEGA- INFRASTRUCTURES TO MITIGATE DROUGHT: A CASE STUDY OF CHANGES IN SOCIAL CAPITAL ASSOCIATED WITH THE SÃO FRANCISCO INTER-BASIN WATER TRANSFER IN THE SEMIARID REGION OF BRAZIL

Flavio Lopes Ribeiro

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the University of Delaware in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Disaster Science and Management

Spring 2019

Flavio Lopes Ribeiro

Approved: ______Maria P. Aristigueta, D.P.A. Director of the School of Public Policy and Administration

Approved: ______John Pelesko, Ph.D. Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences

Approved: ______Douglas J. Doren, Ph.D. Interim Vice Provost for Graduate and Professional Education

I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it meets the academic and professional standard required by the University as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Signed: ______James Kendra, Ph.D. Professor in charge of dissertation

Signed: ______Tricia Wachtendorf, Ph.D. Member of dissertation committee

Signed: ______Joseph Trainor, Ph.D. Member of dissertation committee

Signed: ______Marx Prestes Barbosa, Ph.D. Member of dissertation committee

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my dissertation committee: James Kendra, Tricia Wachtendorf, Joseph Trainor, and Marx Prestes Barbosa. To Marx, I owe thanks for guiding me through the fieldwork in the Cariri and for years of correspondence about drought and vulnerability in the semiarid region of Brazil. To Joe, humongous gratitude for his patience and guidance through the DISA program and for his teachings on the most suitable research methods for this study. To Tricia, special thanks for her class in Disasters and Society, which opened my mind for different perspectives and helped me find the right framework for my dissertation. To Dr.

Kendra I owe tremendous thanks. I am so lucky to have you as my advisor. You guided me for almost four years with enthusiasm and respect. We had great conversations on the most different topics and disasters’ theories, and even during theoretical disagreements, I always felt supported and respected in my decisions. I would like to thank my fellow DRC students for their feedback, cooperation and friendship. In addition, I would like to express my gratitude to DRC staff, with special mention to Pat, Gail, Caroline, and Valerie, and DRC faculty Ben Aguirre and Sue McNeil. A special gratitude goes out to CNPq and LASPAU for providing all the support needed to live abroad and providing the funding for the doctoral program. I am also grateful to my grandmother Ione for her loving and lifelong support. My mother and eternal cheerleader, Lia, who is my role model, my safe harbor, and

iv my greatest supporter. My father Flavio and sister Renata, who have always believed in me. And finally, the most special thanks go to my wife, Lucia. I would never have been able to pursue this doctoral degree without you. I am forever thankful for your love and care. You are the love of my life! Thanks also to my son, Diego, who gave me unconditional love every day. Playing with you kept my creativity alive and helped me remember what is really worth in life. You and your sister, Marina, who is coming very soon, are my greatest treasures and biggest motivation to keep working for a better future.

v TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ...... ix LIST OF FIGURES ...... x ABSTRACT ...... xii

Chapter

1 INTRODUCTION ...... 1

1.1 Outline of the Dissertation ...... 3 1.2 Problem Statement ...... 4 1.3 Research Questions ...... 6 1.4 Research Rationale: Why Social Capital? ...... 7 1.5 Research Hypotheses ...... 9

2 LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 13

2.1 Technology, Innovation, and Social Change: Are Inter-Basin Water Transfers Promoting Development or Crisis? ...... 13

2.1.1 Technology, Development, and Society ...... 16

2.2 Water and Social Change ...... 23 2.3 Social Capital in Disaster Science and Management – Concept and Theories ...... 28 2.4 Empirical Evidence of the Importance of Social Capital to Disaster Science and Management ...... 36 2.5 The São Francisco Inter-Basin Water Transfer ...... 39

2.5.1 History ...... 39 2.5.2 Technology and Complexity ...... 41

2.6 The Semiarid Region of Brazil ...... 42 2.7 The Cariri Region ...... 48

3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ...... 51

3.1 Research Design: Case Study ...... 51

vi 3.2 Data Collection and Analysis ...... 53

3.2.1 Quantitative Survey: Social Capital Questionnaire ...... 54 3.2.2 Interviews ...... 65 3.2.3 Field Observation ...... 70 3.2.4 Document Analysis ...... 75 3.2.5 Triangulation and Verification ...... 78

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ...... 80

4.1 Social Structure, Network, and Social Capital ...... 80 4.2 Physical Structure and Social Capital ...... 110 4.3 Characteristics of Sampled Population ...... 126 4.4 Groups and Social Network ...... 140 4.5 Trust and Solidarity ...... 148 4.6 Collective Action and Cooperation ...... 155 4.7 Information and Communication ...... 158 4.8 Cohesion and Social Inclusion ...... 162 4.9 Empowerment and Subjective Well-Being ...... 174

5 CONCLUSION ...... 179

5.1 Summary of Major Findings ...... 179

5.1.1 Historical and contextualized understanding of social capital .. 179 5.1.2 Water and Social Capital ...... 180 5.1.3 Impact of the SFIWT in the Social Structure of the Cariri: Politics, Power, and Water ...... 182 5.1.4 Impact of the SFIWT on Bonding, Bridging, and Linking Social Capitals ...... 184 5.1.5 Bonding Social capital ...... 189 5.1.6 Bridging social capital ...... 192 5.1.7 Linking Social Capital ...... 194

5.2 Implications for Theory ...... 196 5.3 Limitations ...... 202 5.4 Future Research ...... 203

REFERENCES ...... 206

vii Appendix

A SURVEY – PORTUGUESE VERSION ...... 223 B SURVEY – ENGLISH VERSION ...... 236 C INTERVIEW GUIDE ...... 249 D APPLICATION GUIDE FOR THE SURVEY – Portuguese version ...... 254 E IRB/HUMAN SUBJECTS APPROVAL ...... 257

viii LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Dimensions, definitions, and indicators of Social Capital ...... 57

Table 2: Sampling method for the application of the survey by local volunteers . 59

Table 3: Land distribution in the Cariri Paraibano (1996) ...... 90

Table 4: Rural, Urban, and Total Population. Data from the Human Development Atlas Brazil ...... 111

Table 5: Number of nonprofit organizations, Human Development Index, and Gini Index per municipality ...... 112

Table 6: Distribution of sampled population across municipalities ...... 126

Table 7: Comparison between characteristics of the total sampled population and population without access to water-services ...... 136

Table 8: Relation between listening more to Radio, watching more TV, and using Internet more and participation in local organizations - N=214 .. 161

Table 9: Relation between listening more to Radio, watching more TV, and using Internet more and voluntary actions before the SFIWT - N=214 161

Table 10: Homicide per 100.000 in 2010. Source: Violence Map Brazil - Estadão - Retrieved from: https://www.estadao.com.br/infograficos/cidades,mapa-da-violencia- no-brasil,280781 ...... 172

Table 11: Summary of statistically significant changes in the six dimensions of social capital due to the SFIWT in the Cariri captured by the survey (Applied between April and May 2018)...... 185

ix LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: São Francisco Inter-Basin Water Transfer. From the Environmental Impact Report. Ref. (Ministry of National Integration of Brazil, 2004). 42

Figure 2: Cariri Region, state of Paraíba. Retrieved from: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cariri_Ocidental ...... 49

Figure 3: Example of a pyramidal social structure and social capital types of connection (bonding, bridging, and linking social capitals) ...... 82

Figure 4: 20th century map of the 15 capitanias hereditárias with name and family banner of grantees and the limit of the Treaty of Tordesillas between Portugal and Spain (vertical line in the extreme left). Source: Luiz Teixeira (1574), Litoral Brasileiro com as Capitanias Hereditárias, Portugal, Biblioteca da Ajuda ...... 84

Figure 5: Cistern filled by water trucks in the rural community of Pau D`Arco, Monteiro-PB...... 97

Figure 6: Downtown Campina Grande at night. Picture by Jorge Barbosa (2016) ...... 104

Figure 7: Downtown Monteiro. Picture by Jorge Barbosa (2016) ...... 105

Figure 8: Example of sítio with houses marked inside red circles, Caturité-PB. Satellite image by Satellite Pro. Geolocalization: Caturité, Paraíba, Brazil, Latitude: -7.419223, Longitude: -36.061334. Retrieved from: http://satellites.pro/Borborema.P ...... 108

Figure 9: Percentage of population above 18 years old who completed high school ...... 113

Figure 10: Overview of the municipality of Boqueirão, population 17.842 ...... 114

Figure 11: Percentage of residences with piped water and basic sanitation. Data retrieved from the last census in Brazil, 2010, by IBGE ...... 115

x Figure 12: Music, food, and drinks by the riverside of Paraíba River, Caraúbas- PB. Friday morning of a rainy day. Most people came by motorcycle. The black pick-up truck belongs to the owner of the commercial establishment in the left ...... 117

Figure 13: Wet Passage in São Domingos do Cariri - Paraíba River cutting a rural road ...... 121

Figure 14: Damaged cars passing a now permanent flooded rural road from Camalaú to Caraúbas ...... 123

Figure 15: Participation in local formal and informal groups ...... 142

Figure 16: Who do you rely to have access to water during drought before and after the SFIWT ...... 147

Figure 17: Trust in municipal government ...... 153

Figure 18: Trust in state government ...... 154

Figure 19: Trust in federal governmen ...... 154

Figure 20: Comparison between total number of volunteers before and after the SFIWT ...... 156

Figure 21: Impact of the SFIWT in how households receive information through TV, Radio, and Internet ...... 160

Figure 22: Cars parked on a bridge over the Taperoá river to watch the river. In the upper left, the municipality of Cabaceiras. Photo took from drone, Aesa, April 2018 ...... 176

xi ABSTRACT

Droughts affect more people in Brazil than any other hazard. To mitigate the impacts of drought on the most vulnerable population of the country, the federal government invested $2,5 billion in the São Francisco Inter-Basin Water Transfer (SFIWT). Inter-basin water transfer is a common strategy to increase water availability in arid and semiarid regions of the world. It consists on transporting water from a river basin with water availability to another with water shortage. While these mega-infrastructures can increase the amount of freshwater in dry areas, they can also cause unforeseen social, economic, and environmental changes, sometimes with catastrophic results. Nevertheless, the social impact of inter-basin water transfers is still an understudied area. To fill this gap, this research uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods to measure the impact of the SFIWT in the social capital of the driest region of Brazil, known as the Cariri. Social capital was selected for presenting the potential to reveal changes in the social dynamics and, at the same time, in the local capacity to cope with droughts. Evidence from different disasters has shown that social capital is a vital part of community efforts to mitigate, prepare, respond, and recover from disasters. In the Cariri, a contextual analysis revealed that social capital played an important role in accessing and controlling local natural resources, including water from the SFIWT. The control over local natural resources was historically gained through social capital and nowadays is maintained by social and political relationship

xii to increase profits and political influence. Interviews, survey, field observation, and document analysis also revealed significant changes in bonding and bridging types of social capital due to the SFIWT among the most vulnerable population. These changes were impelled by variances in local engagement with groups and networks; levels of trust in the community; collective actions; information and communication; social cohesion and inclusion; and subjective well-being; all of them important dimensions of social capital. However, considering the extremely vulnerable context, most of these changes have a limited role in eliminating local vulnerabilities and offering pathways to long- term drought solutions. Most changes in local level social capital were detected in bonding type of social capital, which does not help the most vulnerable population to access water. Bridging type of social capital has also shown a tendency to increase in the region, but not enough to increase local capacity to cope with drought. There was no evidence of significant change in linking type of social capital, meaning that the relationship with politicians and people in position of power, who could offer better solutions to water scarcity in the region, remains unchanged. In summary, this research reveals that adding water into a social structure where one social group has historical control over water resources is insufficient to help the most vulnerable populations to overcome water shortages and mitigate the impacts of drought. Therefore, drought mitigation strategies in the semiarid region of Brazil should not be limited to just adding water into the social system, as the SFIWT did, but also enhancing legal instruments to assure the inclusion of the most vulnerable population in the decision-making process of how local water resources will be managed, increasing the chances of a fair water-distribution in the region.

xiii

INTRODUCTION

Water is everything. It has been a metaphor, as in Galileo's famous quotation, that wine is sunlight held by water. Scientists look for water on other worlds, and we are always told excitedly that water even frozen might be found on Mars or on the distant moons of the great planets. Thus, there might be life there. Of course, water is the problem right here, on Earth. In 2018, it was estimated that 2.3 billion people still lack basic water services with numbers expected to increase to 5 billion by 2050 (UN-Water, 2018). One third of the biggest ground water systems are in distress and 8 out of the10 world’s mighty rivers are already overused, polluted, or in risk of being drained dry for agriculture, industry, and domestic use (UN-Water, 2012; National Geographic, 2012). Still, every year our withdrawal rate increases by roughly one percent (UN-Water, 2018). This increase in water demand comes with an increase in water scarcity, evidencing our contested, fraught, and contradictory relationship to water. We need it pure, we defile it, sometimes we have too much, often too little. The movement of water is one of the great human struggles and it is becoming more pronounced each year due to climate change. Water, in this sense, could be considered one of the main means by which humans are experiencing the negative impacts of climate change, either by sea level raise, the ever-increasing number of floods, or more frequent and intense droughts. To mitigate both local and global water crises, modern society is increasingly relying on innovation and technology with some great results, but also unintended

1 social, economic, and environmental consequences. Understanding these consequences is key to promoting sustainable solutions to water management and efficient drought mitigation strategies, especially in arid and semiarid regions of middle- and low-income countries. To help with this discussion, this research investigates the social impacts of inter-basin water transfers, which are one of the most popular, technological-intensive, and expensive solutions to increase water availability for human activities in dry regions. These mega-infrastructures connect different river basins through long water canals and are the result of the marvels of modern technology and engineering. However, their social and environmental impacts are starting to be questioned. On the social side, researchers have examined waterborne diseases, human migration (WCD 2000; He at al. 2005, 2007, 2010) and social disruption due to structural or economic collapses (Albiac et al., 2006; Glantz, 2007; Micklin, 2010). The literature, though, is limited and mostly focused on the negative impacts of inter-basin water transfers when something goes wrong. There is a knowledge gap on how social systems reorganize themselves around these mega-infrastructures and how they affect the local capacity to cope with drought. To fill this gap, this research uses the São Francisco Inter-Basin Water

Transfer (SFIWT), located in the semiarid region of Brazil, as a case study. This mega-infrastructure connects four different river basins, cost 2.5 billion dollars, and was intended to provide water security for more than 12 million people living in the poorest and driest region of Brazil. The social impacts of this mega-project were measured by analyzing changes in local social capital using a combination of

2 qualitative and quantitative research methods, such as interviews, field observation, document analysis, and a survey. Social capital was selected for its potential to reveal changes in the social dynamics and features of the local social structure to cope with drought. The primary objective was to identify and analyze social changes associated with the SFIWT and assess if they are contributing to reduce the impact of droughts for the most vulnerable populations. The results show the complex interlinkage between drought, politics, and technology, and how they interact to influence decisively local water management, availability, and distribution.

1.1 Outline of the Dissertation This dissertation is divided into five chapters. Chapter one introduces the problem statement, the research question, and main hypotheses which this dissertation will try to address. Chapter two is composed of the literature review relevant to this dissertation, starting with the social impact of inter-basin water transfers, the relationship between water and society, and specific themes such as the importance of social capital to disaster science and management, the São Francisco Inter-Basin Water Transfer (SFIWT), and an overview of the semiarid region of Brazil, particularly the Cariri region, where this case study took place. Chapter three is dedicated to clarifying the research methodology, including the research design, data collection, and data analysis for each research method selected to be part of this case study. Chapter four combines results and discussion and is separated into three main categories: 1) Social structure, networks, and social capital; 2) Physical structure and social capital; 3) Changes in six dimensions of social capital due to the SFIWT.

Chapter five focuses on contributions of this case study to science and practice on

3 drought management, inter-basin water transfers, and social capital, also exposing difficulties and limitations of this research and future research possibilities derived from this study.

1.2 Problem Statement Drought affects more people in the world than any other physical hazard

(UNISDR, 2009; FAO, 2013). In 2015 alone, droughts affected 330 million people, with a total loss estimated in U$20 billion (EM-DAT, 2017). Anthropogenic climate change also poses an additional challenge to drought management (Vörösmarty et al., 2010), increasing not only the frequency but the intensity and duration of droughts in arid and semiarid regions of the world, as had been predicted by different climate models (Gamble et al., 2010; Trenberth et al., 2014).

In Brazil, the number of municipalities declaring emergency due to drought from 2003 to 2015 increased 409% (ANA – National Water Agency, 2016). Even though drought affects almost all regions across the country, from the far-north Amazon region to the Pampas wetlands in the south, the semiarid region is by far the most impacted in terms of economic losses and number of people affected (José A. Marengo et al., 2017; Jose A. Marengo, Tomasella, Alves, Soares, & Rodriguez, 2011;

Zeri et al., 2018). From 2012 to 2017, the semiarid region had the most severe drought ever registered in the country, with economic losses around $8 billion and greater impact on livestock, agriculture, and the public sector (National Confederation of Municipalities [Confederação Nacional dos Municípios], 2016; Marengo et al., 2017). Future climate projections for the region show a tendency for longer periods with consecutive dry days and increased temperatures, which, coupled with human activities such as deforestation, unsustainable irrigation and water abstraction suggest

4 the occurrence of more frequent and intense droughts (Loon et al., 2016; José A. Marengo et al., 2017). To increase water availability in the semiarid region and mitigate impacts of recurrent droughts, the Government of Brazil invested around $2.5 billion in the São Francisco Inter-Basin Water Transfer (SFIWT). Inter-basin water transfers consist of transporting water from a hydrographic basin with water availability to another basin with water shortage. With its capacity to transport huge amounts of water over long distances, it became a common practice to mitigate the effects of drought by increasing water availability to farmland, rural productivity, industry, and urban development around the world. The logic is that a reliable and well-managed new source of freshwater will attract new industries, commerce, and increase agricultural production, therefore increasing local investments in better infrastructure and social services (Ministry of National Integration, 2004). However, megaprojects come with mega-risks, some of them unforeseen (Flyvbjerg, 2014). Previous research has examined the impact of inter-basin water transfers on forest depletion, soil and water contamination (Gleick 1998; He et al. 2005; Zhuang, 2016), waterborne diseases, human migration (WCD 2000; He et al. 2005, 2007, 2010), biodiversity loss, ecosystems collapse, and economic and social disruptions (Albiac et al., 2006; Glantz, 2007; Micklin, 2010), revealing that these kind of projects generally come with unpredicted and unintended negative impacts on social and environmental systems. For better or for worse, inter-basin water transfers have the potential of causing great social, economic, and environmental changes in their area of influence. In the specific case of the SFIWT, it affects directly the most vulnerable population to

5 drought in Brazil. However, its impact on local population and social dynamics is still unknown. Understanding both positive and negative social implications of this mega- infrastructure is important for, first, local government and institutions to be able to make the necessary adjustments to minimize possible negative impacts on the local population and support important decisions on water management, such as water use, cost, accessibility, and distribution. Second, the complex interactions between natural and human processes, especially the human role in mitigating and enhancing drought, must be fully understood to develop more effective drought management plans at national and sub-national scales (Loon et al., 2016).

1.3 Research Questions After studying the SFIWT for more than 2 years from different perspectives, I had more questions than answers regarding the benefits of this megaproject to the local population of the semiarid region of Brazil. Among many different questions varying from social and environment risks associated with the SFIWT and effectiveness of this megaproject to solve political and historical problems of water crisis in the region, this dissertation was mainly concerned with: “What are the positive and negative social impacts of the SFIWT?” and “Is the SFIWT contributing to the local capacity of the most vulnerable populations to cope with drought?” However, it was not possible to answer such questions within the scope of a dissertation, for they are too broad, complex, and lack parameters to understand social changes and local capacity to cope with drought. To solve this problem, first I had to select a geographical location for this study. It was not hard to select a place where this research could be conducted, since the only region where the SFIWT is fully operational is the Cariri region in the state of Paraiba, which is described further on in

6 the dissertation. After delimitating a geographical location for this research, I had to choose a framework to understand social changes and local capacity to cope with drought. The framework that best suited the objectives of this dissertation was the concept of social capital. Social capital can conveniently bring together variables to trace social changes and local capacity to cope with disaster and adaptation to climate change. Considering the geographical limits selected for this dissertation and the framework of social capital to understand social changes and local capacity to cope with drought, this dissertation asks the following research question: “What are the short-term impacts of the SFIWT on the social capital of the Cariri-PB region in the semiarid of Brazil?” The objectives of this dissertation are to 1) analyze qualitative changes in social capital associated with the SFIWT; 2) register the current social capital of the

Cariri region for further studies on social changes associated with local strategies to cope with drought; and 3) understanding if the SFIWT is contributing to the local capacity to cope with drought.

1.4 Research Rationale: Why Social Capital? For the purpose of this dissertation, social capital can be broadly defined as the

“by-product of social interactions that are embedded in and accessed via formal and informal social relationships with individuals, communities and institutions” (Hawkins and Maurer, 2012; p.356). Evidence from different disasters has shown that social capital resources and networks are a vital part of community efforts to mitigate, prepare, respond, and recover from environmental disasters (Dynes, 2005; Elliott, Haney, & Sams-Abiodun, 2010; LaLone, 2012; Aldrich and Meyer, 2015). In drought prone regions, research indicates that social capital contributes to promoting local

7 adaptation to climate change (Adger, 2003), responsible use of water (Miller and Buys, 2008), and increasing agricultural productivity (Rajan, 2014). In theory, the more social capital, the greater the chances of better adaptation processes to new circumstances and adversities, since there are more human, physical, and economic resources available through bigger and stronger networks between individuals and groups in horizontal and vertical ways (Aldrich, 2012). On the other hand, a negative impact on social capital would imply weaker social bonds and limited access to resources needed to mitigate, respond, and recover from disasters. However, despite the importance of social capital to the whole disaster cycle, there is a lack of literature on the relationship between disaster mitigation actions and social capital. More specifically, there is a gap in the current literature about how large-scale projects to mitigate the impact of drought, like inter-basin water transfers, can change social networks and impair or contribute to more efficient local strategies to cope with drought. In this sense, this study can add to the overall literature on this topic by describing the impacts of the SFIWT in the social capital of the Cariri region and how these changes can influence local capacity to cope with drought. So far, no studies on the social implications of the SFIWT were found, and the literature on social capital in the semiarid region of Brazil is extremely limited. One possible explanation could be that the SFIWT is not fully operational yet. It is still in the first phase of implementation and only the Cariri region, in the state of Paraiba, has access to its waters. Even recognizing that the semiarid region of Brazil is big and diverse, and presents environmental, social, and cultural differences among different municipalities, it also shares great similarities along its vast territory. Thus, studying

8 the impact of the SFIWT in the social capital of the Cariri region could also give some indications of similar social impacts on other areas of influence of the SFIWT and its more than 300 miles of waterways. Understanding the implications of a new source of freshwater in the social context of the semiarid region of Brazil is also extremely important to reduce social, political, and economic vulnerabilities of the region, which are the root causes of local water scarcity. An assessment of local relationships between people, formal and informal institutions, and people in position of power, can give us clues of the effectiveness of this megaproject and suggest possible adjustments to reach the main objective of the SFIWT, which was minimizing the impacts of drought on the most vulnerable populations.

1.5 Research Hypotheses

The existing literature, even though small, offer some insights on what we might find regarding the impact of the SFIWT in the social capital of the Cariri, as well as its main consequences for the local capacity to cope with drought. The starting point is that large scale inter-basin water transfers do cause social changes, both positive and negative. But, what kinds of social changes can be expected when a valuable resource such as water is added into the driest and one of poorest regions of

Brazil? How water changes the way people relate to each other, participate in their community and share their resources? How does it affect their capacity to cope with drought? Since there is a lack of studies on social capital in the semiarid of Brazil, our hypotheses are merely speculative. However, considering what is known about the local social structure and the literature on social capital, it is possible to imagine the following scenario:

9 First, a decrease of bonding social capital. As Rajan (2014) found while studying drought in Australia, bonding social capital has a positive relation with drought. It increases to higher levels when small farmers are simultaneously faced with higher levels of risk and a longer span of drought events. This is because social capital serves to overcome lack of structural and economic resources by allowing small farmers to pool and share their resources. Pelling and High (2005) also found out that these strong bonding ties are associated more with survival than development. They explain that individuals withdraw from maintaining associations with the wider society and turn to close-knit groups in an effort to reduce the exposure of group members to perceived external risks (Pelling and High, 2005). Following this logic, bonding social capital should decrease when external risk and the actual impacts of drought are at lower levels, especially if accompanied by augmented economic resources at the household level. With more money to invest in home-based entertainment, such as TV and Internet, there can be a decline in bonding social capital too. This assumption is based in findings of Putnam (1995) and Neil and Erbring (2000), who identified that, in the US, the more time people spend watching TV (Putnam, 1995) and using the Internet (Neil and Erbring, 2000), the more they lose contact with their immediate social network. In China, another study reveals that a significant decline of social capital was connected to economic growth and the increasing orientation of Chinese people toward materialistic values (Bartolini and Sarracino, 2015). On the other hand, considering the same literature mentioned above, we might expect an increasing flow of knowledge and information, and cooperation among different actors to solve problems related to distribution, access, and management of

10 the new freshwater source. In other words, there is a possibility of increasing social trust, and interaction among groups from different social layers (bridging social capital) to a collective water management. This hypothesis gains traction if we consider that there is already a Water Management Committee for the Sao Francisco Inter-Basin Water Transfer, which is now active and deciding all sorts of water management issues. This committee is composed of different stakeholders such as small farmers, community leaders, representatives of households, local-level government, academia, NGOs, and big farmers of the region. These kinds of committees also represent an opportunity to increase bridging and linking social capital for the region, promoting connections among different groups, and linking those groups with local, state, and federal level politicians. However, as in Dean et al. (2016; p.457), community involvement in water resource management and consequent improvement of bridging and linking social capital can be conditional upon “location, employment status, life satisfaction, and language spoken within the home”. If we consider the “dark side” of social capital, there is also a possibility that the ones already excluded in the community decision-making processes will remain excluded from the debates and decisions regarding water resource management. As in the case study of shelter recovery processes after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Rahill et al. (2014) identified that social capital can have a double-role regarding resource distribution in a post-disaster scenario and even lead to violent conflict. If on the one hand, social capital provided enhanced access to shelter-related resources for those with connections, on the other, it accentuated pre-existing inequalities or created new inequalities among displaced Haitians. “In some cases, such inequalities lead to

11 tensions between the have and have nots and instigate violence among the displaced” (Rahill et al., 2014). In summary, this study is working with the hypothesis that the Sao Francisco Inter-Basin Water Transfer can decrease levels of bonding social capital, while, at the same time, augmenting social trust, reciprocity, and bridging and linking social capitals. However, considering the local history of social exclusion, this study also works with the possibility that the SFIWT can potentially contribute to accentuate pre- existing inequalities or creates new inequalities and conflict around distribution and management of water.

LITERATURE REVIEW

The literature review for this dissertation proposal is divided into two sections.

The first section focuses on the social impact of inter-basin water transfers, exploring how technology, innovation, and new sources of freshwater can lead to social changes, with special attention to changes in social capital. Then, it describes the importance of social capital to disaster science and identifies gaps in the literature on social capital and drought. The second section will provide technical details on the SFIWT and describe both the semiarid region of Brazil and the Cariri region, where this study took place.

2.1 Technology, Innovation, and Social Change: Are Inter-Basin Water Transfers Promoting Development or Crisis? Since ancient times, social changes have been bound to advances in science and technology. From learning how to manage fire until the latest quantum super computer that can make 130 quadrillion calculations per second, new technologies have always impacted human society in both positive and negative ways. While technology can solve many problems and expand human capacity to observe, understand, and interact with the world, it can also create great social, environmental, and economic challenges, not always easy to recognize and manage. There are many examples to illustrate the ambiguous role of technology in modern society, such as large-scale inter-basin water transfers. To mitigate the impact of protracted droughts and chronic water shortages, countries like the United States,

13 Russia, India, China, Brazil, Canada and many others, have been turning to large scale inter-basin water transfers as a definite solution to boost water availability in arid and semiarid regions. Modern inter-basin water transfers are only made possible due to cutting-edge technology such as advanced control systems for management of water supply, innovations in engineering, water and soil sciences, advanced computing, and many more. While these mega-infrastructures can increase the amount of freshwater in dry areas, they can also cause unforeseen social, economic, and environmental changes, sometimes with catastrophic results. One of the most iconic examples is the Karakum Water Transfer Project in the former Soviet Union for irrigation purposes, especially cotton crops, which caused a decrease of 92% of the total volume of the Aral Sea (Micklin, 2010) and the collapse of all economic activities dependent on the regional ecosystem, which is now virtually extinct (Glantz, 2007). Some specialists consider this to be the worst man-made environmental disaster in human history (Wang et al., 2008; Krivonogov et al., 2014). In China, where river diversion and inter-basin water transfers have been traditionally used for millennia (with some water canals dating back 456 BC), many scientists are now searching for alternative solutions to water shortage, understanding that inter-basin water transfers can increase the risk of new and different disasters

(Zhuang, 2016). Even though attention has been slowly shifting on the development of local strategies, the Chinese government started in 2002 the construction of the South- to-North Water Transfer Project, the largest hydraulic project in the world (Zhuang, 2016), to stimulate regional development and maintain China’s rapid economy growth (World Commission on Dams - WCD 2000; He et al. 2010; Zhang, 2016).

14 The clear focus on economic growth, however, has created environmental, social, and economic problems related to inter-basin water transfers countrywide, such as loss of land and riparian habitat, change of hydrology of river systems, damage to fisheries and wildlife species, alteration of scenery, relocation of people, and increase of water-borne diseases like schistosomiasis, malaria, and intestinal parasites (He et al.

2005, 2007, 2010; Zhuang, 2016). Just to have a dimension on the scale of social, political, and economic problems caused by inter-basin water transfers, just in the period of 1960-1990, more than 10 million people were officially displaced in China (Gleick, 1998). Like in China, waterworks for irrigation, mineral extraction, and urban development has been important in the Iberian Peninsula from ancient times (Albiac et al., 2006). However, more recently, in 1993, the Spanish National Hydrological Plan to interconnect all main basins of the Iberian Peninsula caused so much controversy, conflicts, and distrust between social and political groups that it had to be abandoned (Albiac et al., 2006). The Spanish government then, due to heavy increase of water demand from the highly profitable fruit and vegetable sector, proposed a much smaller inter-basin water transfer, but, once more, the renewed project met with strong opposition from water resource experts, environmental and social organizations, and was cancelled in 2005. The focus of the Spanish Parliament to solve the severe degradation of water resources in the Iberian Peninsula basins now changed to seawater desalination, considered a much less risky plan (Albiac et al., 2006). On the other hand, large scale inter-basin water transfers are proven to augment energy supplies and irrigation to agricultural production (Ghassemi and White, 2007; Wang et al., 2008; Zhuang, 2016); support an ever-growing urban

15 population and supplement drought-strained water supplies (Fang, 2005; Zhao et al., 2015); and enhance rural economic stability by leasing or selling water (Western Governors Association and the Western States Water Council; 2012). There is even the uncommon example of the Bavaria Water Transfer Project that aims at ecological protection in Germany (Fang, 2005).

Therefore, the factual analysis of the impact of modern inter-basin water transfers challenges the conviction that “development is always good”, while it is not possible to say that it is always bad either. It is undeniable that populations living in arid and semiarid regions would benefit from new freshwater resources, not to mention that water is a basic human right. However, investments in megaprojects like an inter-basin water transfer come with great risks, especially for populations already marginalized and with little political voice and in zones affected by climate change

(Lavell and Wisner, 2017).

2.1.1 Technology, Development, and Society The dangers associated with direct investments in technologies and mega infrastructures to promote economic growth have been discussed since the first industrial revolution in the late 1700s. Early political-economists offer different perspectives on whether technology contributes to social development or causes more problems than solutions. Opposite points of view started to be crafted during the transition period from a predominantly agrarian and rural society to an industrialized and urban one. During this period, one of the most influential thinkers of that time, Henry de Saint-Simon (1760-1825), was already applying a positivist scientific method to analyze and anticipate the impact of the new industrial technology on human society. Saint-Simon was part of a group of thinkers who believe that

16 technology leads to social progress. He stated that the spread of industrialism was bound to have a positive impact not only in Europe, but in the rest of the world too (Taylor, 1975). However, to reach the utopia of the ‘best form of social organization’ that the new technology could provide, some criteria had to be met. First, he realized that a paradigm change in “which a moral system was gradually replaced by another”

(Taylor, 1975) had to pass through a transition period, or a crisis. To overcome the critical period of crisis and make the most of the industrialism era, Saint-Simon suggested that the public administrative structure was in need of an urgent reform, where the decision-making process and control of the national budget “should be handed over to those men who knew most about economic affairs” (Taylor, 1975) leading to the establishment of a scientific-industrial society. Here, it is implied that the industrial revolution would bring important changes not only in production, consumption, and economic wealth, but also to the political, economic, and social systems of that time, ultimately giving birth to capitalism. This vision influenced contemporary economists, like Alfred Marshall, who, just like Saint-Simon, also advocated that new technologies and industrial machinery were capable to promote individual and social development. He believed that machines had the power to “lighten human labor” (Marshall, 1890) relieving the strain of human muscles and making possible for workers to “give themselves chiefly to those parts of the task which are most pleasant and most interesting” (Marshall, 1890: 217), taking over all monotonous work in manufacture. Beyond individual benefits, according to Marshall (1890), technology also brings social benefits by weakening the barriers that divide different trades, facilitating international commerce of different goods, opening possibilities for different employment opportunities, cheapening

17 means of communication and production of goods, and consequently making them more affordable to the general public. Rosenberg (1972) also points out other important dimensions of social benefits driven by technology. For him, new technologies foment investment in knowledge and learning processes, promoting technical progress and consequent social benefits with new, cheaper, and better technologies (Rosenberg, 1972). In this sense, Schumpeter (1942), also realized that technology has improved both social welfare and stimulated the creation of new technologies essential for keeping “the capitalist engine in motion” (Schumpeter, 1942), which, in his point of view, is not only good, but essential to economic and social growth. In comparing modern life with the one back in 1899, he says, “we cannot fail to be struck by the rate of the advance which, considering the spectacular improvements in quality seems to have been greater and not smaller than it ever was before” (Schumpeter, 1942). The authors mentioned above, even considering their theoretical differences, agree that new technologies cause more good than bad to our society. It contributes to economic growth and social welfare and should be funded and fomented. On the other hand, another group of political-economy thinkers who shared the same time and space of those mentioned above, saw a completely different scenario.

They saw the beginning of a grey, polluted, and morality degrading era, where machinery and technology were draining out the best of human societies and destroying the natural environment. They were able to describe some of these social-environmental impacts of the second industrialization process from the point of view of those who were inside the

18 factories, operating machines and living next to industrial fields: the working-class perspective. Mumford (1963), for example, provided vivid details on how the industrialization process changed for the worst nearly every aspect of human society including economy, environment, moral values, health and even sexuality. According to him, the industrialization process was characterized, firstly, by a “sharp shift of interest from life values to pecuniary values” where “it was no longer sufficient for industry to provide a livelihood: it must create an independent fortune: work was no longer a necessary part of living: it became an all-important end” (Mumford, 1963; p.153). In this context, technology was already causing changes at the individual level, giving birth to a new type of personality that Mumford called the Economic man, who sacrifices the pleasures and delights of life in the pursuit of money and power.

Another striking feature of industrial cities was air, soil, and water pollution, which set the dark tone of this phase with its color black and grey spreading everywhere (Mumford, 1963). Women and children were exploited in dirty factories, where people spent their entire lives working from fourteen to sixteen hours in exchange for low wages, far below the subsistence level (Mumford, 1963). Environmental destruction, degradation of the worker, diseases, and all kinds of abuse were a common feature in the industrial fields. Mumford (1963) even declared that this was the lowest point in social development Europe had known since the dark ages, receiving also the title of “New Barbarism”. Nowadays, these industries are not in Europe or in the United States anymore. Environmental and social regulations, inspections, fines, and other sorts of protective measures made production in high-income countries too expensive. The solution was

19 to move high risk industrial activities to much cheaper, poorer, and corruptible middle- and low-income countries, where, unfortunately, the “new barbarism” is thriving. At the present time, it is very common to read news describing the same and sometimes even worse scenarios as those described by Mumford in England, but in other regions such as South Asia, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa. In Brazil, for example, two mining dams collapsed in a period of four years (2015-2019), covering with toxic mud entire cities and hundreds of miles of pristine nature and rivers. Thousands of families were affected and there were more than 400 casualties. Both catastrophes were consequently considered the worst environmental disasters in the country. In India, D’Souza (2009; p.1) sees modern life of production and consumption as “crowded, noisy, polluted and full of potential hazards. Add to that, forests are disappearing, water bodies have become toxic soups, the planet is heating up and statistically speaking, many species might have become extinct”. Not to mention the Bhopal plant disaster in 1984, where more than 2000 people died immediately due to a leak of 40 tons of poisonous gasses from a chemical plant owned and operated by Union Carbide (India) Limited, a partly-owned subsidiary of the US-based Union

Carbide Corporation (Peterson, 2009). Even though recognizing these problems, D’Souza sees the future with hope, expecting that science and new technologies can solve the problems created by the Economic man and his old machinery of mass production. Marx didn’t share this optimism. He showed a great degree of skepticism in the regard of progression of machines and technology in the industrialization process.

20 According to his point of view, machines bring moral degradation and depreciate human labor power (Marx, 1867). On the social dimension, machinery was producing not only goods, but also chronic misery felt by great masses. Since machinery is constantly seizing upon new fields of production, Marx predicted that their effect would be permanent and not transitional like Mumford and, more recently, D’Souza would expect. So far, Marx was right, and the impact of industrialization and technology to increase economic growth on human society and nature has reached an alarming point. In November 2017, a group of more than 15,000 scientists around the world have issued a second global warning, which comes 25 years after the first notice in 1992. They say that “a great change in our stewardship of the Earth and the life on it is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided” (Ripple et al., 2017) and expressed concern about current, impending, or potential damage on planet Earth involving, among other topics, freshwater availability. In this regard, they say, “[F]future water shortages will be detrimental to humans, affecting everything from drinking water, human health, sanitation, and the production of crops for food” (Ripple, et al., 2017). Therefore, there must be investments to reduce the risk of drought and water scarcity in the world. Most of these investments are directed to more technology to solve or minimize a problem created by the use technology. To understand the risk of solving these problems with more technology, we should first not reduce technology to machinery, like early political-economy scholars. Technology, as we conceive today, certainly began with the machine, but transcended it a long time ago (Ellul, 1964). At present, not only is the machine the result of a certain technology or technique, but also “its social and economic applications are

21 made possible by other technical advances” (Ellul, 1964), as the development of new materials, computing systems, advanced math and quantum physics models, just to mention a few. In this sense, technology became the human capacity to solve problems, to create, and innovate in all areas of knowledge. But, as noticed by Ellul (1964), Vanderburg (2005), and Beck (2011), our capacity to solve problems in technological societies has been trained to think that the world is so complex that it can only be understood in pieces (very little pieces, indeed). Individuals have become extremely specialized and efficient in rational techniques to solve very specific problems, but our society as whole is failing in developing methods to connect these pieces (Vanderburg, 2005). In other words, the area that is creating the problem doesn’t know how to solve it and depends on other areas to come up with solutions, which will create other problems that they can’t solve and so on… (Vanderburg, 2005). The case study and focus of this dissertation is a good example of technology to solve a specific problem, drought, but which is also creating unintended social, economic, and environmental problems, as will be described further on in this dissertation. Impressively enough, very similar arguments like those made more than 150 years ago were used to justify investments in the SFIWT in the semiarid region of Brazil. Those in favor of this mega-project assert that it would bring social, economic, and environmental benefits to the semiarid region like new industries, improved agricultural production, and better infrastructures like roads, schools, and hospitals, changing forever the scenario of scarcity in the region (Ministry of National Integration, 2004). It is argued that a reliable source of freshwater will attract new

22 market investments, employment opportunities, rapid urbanization, and consequent local social-economic improvements. On the other hand, those who oppose the SFIWT understand that it would generate more problems than real solutions, suggesting even the possibility of killing the São Francisco river and causing water scarcity in other places where the river is the main resource of social and economic activities (Harvey, 2008). With new industries being attracted to such a poor region as the semiarid, these groups also warn of the possibility of labor exploitation to maximize profits, as well as environmental degradation due to natural resource extraction and all sorts of chemical pollution and waste. These concerns are very similar to those of Marx and Mumford, and very real taking into account other examples of inter-basin water transfers around the world, as mentioned before.

However, we must be open for a third possibility, which considers that all impacts of the SFIWT, positive and negative, could be happening at the same time. After all, technology is allowing the driest region of Brazil to have access to a whole range of new possibilities that comes with water and which have the potential of transforming the semiarid region of Brazil forever, for better or for worse.

2.2 Water and Social Change Just like technology, water has a great potential to cause social changes. Water is a common and abundant substance on Earth. It is essential for all life forms and covers approximately 73% of world’s surface. However, of the total amount of water in the planet, only 3% is freshwater. Although this amount of freshwater seems insignificant compared to the total amount of water in world, it has been playing an important role in human and social development. Learning how to manage this tiny

23 percentage of freshwater was essential to develop agriculture, domestication of animals and the creation of the first permanent settlements (Holden, 2014). Over time, water management contributed to the development of engineering, architecture, industry, transportation and generation of electric power to the sustenance of modern cities.

These great achievements also brought important social and environmental challenges. At the global scale, humans have warmed the planet, raised sea levels, eroded the ozone layer and acidified the oceans (Monastersky, 2015). Locally, these changes are having a negative impact on freshwater resources, like widespread pollution and water scarcity in many regions of the world (Vörösmarty et al., 2010). About seventy of the world's major rivers are already over used due to economic activities, which are taking too much water out to permit the river to reach the sea and nourish the ecosystems (UN Water, 2012). The demands for freshwater by industry and especially by agriculture are causing groundwater resources to be depleted and surface water resources to be abstracted in ways that can compromise the freshwater ecosystem irreversibly (Ridoutt and Pfister, 2010; Falkenmark, 2008). In Brazil, for example, “on average ten small rivers in the savanna region disappear each year. These little rivers are major rivers feeders, which, because of that, also have a reduced flow and do not feed tanks and other rivers that are tributaries” (Barbosa, 2017) with negative social and economic impacts. According to UN Water (2018) almost 1 billion people lack water accessible on premises, available when needed and free from contamination and “another 1.6 billion people, or almost one quarter of the world's population, face economic water shortage (where countries lack the necessary infrastructure to take water from rivers

24 and aquifers)” (UN-Water, 2012). Therefore, choosing the best ways to provide human access to safe water and understanding the impacts on human society could be key to a sustainable use and distribution of freshwater in the near future. As in Michalak (2015; p.349), “that is no coincidence: climate and the hydrological cycle are tightly coupled, and water is essential to ecosystems and societies”.

Even though the focus has been more on the impact of human activities on water resources and not the other way around like proposed by this study, some examples from the literature also show that new sources of freshwater can have a great impact on human societies too. In Libya, which is a typical desert country, an underground artificial river is being built to meet industrial and residential water consumption and farm irrigation of 400,000 ha in the north coast. This mega infrastructure was designed to pump groundwater to oases in the south, and transport water to reservoirs in the north through underground pipelines of total length of 5,000 km and multi-stage pump stations along the way. Even though it will take 30 years to be completed, 250,000 ha of farmland have been already irrigated and several large farms have been established by water transfer. The result so far is that, locally, water availability is meeting municipal water consumption, while nationally it has increased national food self- sufficiency by 40% (Zhuang, 2016). According to Li et al. (2003), a water transfer has also helped transform Pakistan from a food importing country to an exporting one since its agricultural production conditions have been greatly improved. In addition, habitat has been provided for endangered wildlife along the water transfer route, and dams and

25 channels also improved the local economy by increasing tourism in the area (Li et al., 2003). A study on water supply improvements in Manila, Philippines, in 2002, showed with more details some social implications of facilitating the access of local communities to safe water. With households spending less time and money at public faucets to purchase water, not only the unit price of water went down, but also “72.1% of the households started working for more income using time saved through the improvement of water supply and the proportion of the households under the poverty threshold was reduced from 55.6% to 29.9%” (Aiga & Umenai, 2002). It worth mentioning that this is not the result of water transfers like previous examples, but the result of the privatization of public water supplies, which is a controversial strategy to increase the availability of safe water to general population.

Unfortunately, there are also examples of negative impacts of technology to increase water availability on drought prone regions, even more than positive ones, especially those related to modern inter-basin water transfers. These kinds of projects had caused the waste of water resources in recipient basins (Chen, 2004); spread of pollution and waterborne diseases (Gupta and van der Zaag, 2008; Sible et al., 2015); salinization on both sides of the conveying channels (Zhao et al., 2015; Liu et al.,

2013; Ma and Wang, 2011); biodiversity loss (Davies et al., 1992; Glantz, 2004; Barbel-Filho et al., 2015), and of course, disasters, like the environmental and social collapse due to the reduction of 92% of the Aral by the Karakum Water Transfer Project in the former Soviet Union. However, as stated by the Committee on Assessment of Water Resources Research (2004) “the future water crisis is unlikely to materialize as a monolithic

26 catastrophe that threatens the livelihoods of millions. Rather it is the growing sum of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of water problems at regional and local scales.” To avoid that happening, it is urgent to understand the impacts of natural water resource management strategies from different angles, including the impact of inter-basin water transfers on social capital, since social capital has shown to be one important indicator of success in reducing risk of disasters, responding to emergencies, recovering from disasters, adapting to climate change, and managing water resources. In this regard, interest in social capital has been growing as an important feature of social systems to manage an ever-increasing freshwater demand in a scenario of more intense anthropogenic climate change. Until recently, water resource management was often the exclusive task of technical experts working under the government (Pahl-Wostl et al., 2007). During the 90’s, a slow shift started by transferring responsibilities to lower governments through the concepts of decentralization (Bergsma et al, 2012; UN Water, 2012). Water resource management processes are still evolving, and the most recent trend has led to participatory management and stakeholder involvement. Participatory management implies a system in which cooperation among a wide range of stakeholders and institutions is necessary (Pahl-Wostl et al., 2007), including not only water managers and government officials, but also other interested parties in a process where “there is a need to consider a wide variety of values, knowledge, and perspectives in a collaborative decision-making process” (von Korf et al., 2012). In this context, social capital is crucial to help communities work together collectively to use natural resources sustainably over the long term (Pretty, 2003). Therefore, the impact of inter-basin water transfers on social capital of receiving

27 communities can also indicate the ability of a social system to successfully manage the new source of freshwater and adopt adaptation measures to cope with drought.

2.3 Social Capital in Disaster Science and Management – Concept and Theories The concept of social capital has been evolving since Lyda J. Hanifan (1916) used the term social capital as “good will, fellowship, mutual sympathy, and social intercourse among a group of individuals and families who make up a social unit” when studying the role of community participation in shaping local educational outcomes in West Virginia (Woolcock, 2001; Aldrich and Meyer, 2015). But it was only recently that the concept started to be used in disaster science and management, when Beggs et al. (1996) established the importance of formal and informal networks in the recovery process after Hurricane Andrew, in 1992 (Aldrich, 2012). By analyzing measures of network and the role of formal and informal supports, Beggs et al. (1996) concluded that different types of ties provided different kinds of support for survivors in the aftermath of the hurricane, and that both formal and informal networks are important to reach out for different resources needed for the recovery process. Since then, the literature on disasters and social capital has been showing considerable evidences, especially from microlevel case studies, to support the importance of social capital to the whole disaster cycle, especially to the recovery phase and adaptation to climate change, even though there is a growing literature on the contribution of social capital to the mitigation, preparedness, and response to disasters too. This is because the ability of societies to reduce risk, cope with disasters, and adapt to climate change is determined, in part, by the ability to act collectively

(Ostrom, 2000; Adger, 2003; Pelling and High, 2005). In this sense, social capital can

28 be seen as a form of social institution where people have the common good as their objective (Durston, 1999). For this study, social capital is considered a social and not an individual phenomenon, as sometimes it is portrayed in social work, psychology, and other disciplines that compose the interdisciplinary field of disaster science. Even within this scope, many different concepts of social capital have been influencing the theory of disaster science and management. The central idea is that social networks are a valuable asset (Field, 2017), but the way different authors understand and measure complex human relationships varies significantly. To illustrate that, let’s take the example of three of the most cited and important authors on social capital relevant to disasters: Bourdieu, Coleman, and Putnam. Pierre Bourdieu’s work emphasizes the structural aspect of social capital and the vertical relationships among individual and groups, specifically the inherent power dynamics of social classes and the role of social, cultural, and financial capital in the understanding of power and domination in the European society. The limitations of this approach are that social capital is portrayed as largely benign for those who have it and an exclusive elite resource “rooted in a relatively static model of social hierarchy, which is ill-suited for dealing with the more fluid, open and lose social relations of late modernity” (Field, 2017).

Differently from Bourdieu, James Coleman, showed that social capital can also convey real benefits for poor and marginalized communities (Field, 2017). He introduced the concepts of trust, reciprocity, and shared values into social capital to explain how people and groups of people cooperate. To measure social capital, Coleman used the rational choice framework and game theory to capture what was important for individuals in the pursuit of their own interest and how they rationally

29 decide to cooperate to have access to resources. His focus was on the interaction of social and human capitals, and their mutual influence for individual and communal benefits. Even though Coleman is one of the most cited authors in social capital and disasters articles, his approach suffered criticism for reducing social capital to its function (Lin, 2000), as if humans invested in relationships only to have access to individual resources. This focus on rational choices does not take into consideration human emotions and affect to build networks and relationships, thus leading to an incomplete proposition to describe motivations to connect that transcend pure rational calculations. Even considering the importance of Bourdieu and Coleman, Robert Putnam’s definition of social capital is still one of the most cited in articles relating disasters and social capital. When analyzing the different levels of civic engagement between northern and southern Italy, Putnam (1993) defined social capital as “features of social organizations, such as networks, norms, and trust that can improve the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated actions”. He believed that social capital was an unplanned by-product of social interactions that enable participants to act together more effectively to pursue shared objectives (Putnam, 1996). It was Putnam that also introduced the difference between bonding and bridging social capital, as will be defined later on in this study, and which is now widely used to understand and measure social capital in pre and post-disasters situations. By expanding the concept of social capital and introducing empirical details with analysis of statistical data on social trends such as political participation, volunteering, and membership records in national and local associations, Putnam seems to mark a refinement of the definitions presented by Bourdieu and Coleman

30 (Field, 2017). Even though he sees social capital as functional, Putnam doesn’t use individual rational choice to measure or understand how social capital works as Coleman, nor focus on social power structures as Bourdieu. His work explores the impact of different features of modern society on social networks, for example, how TV affects civic life and time with friends, or the impact of race, age, and education on civic participation. Putnam didn’t limit himself to only analyze data, but also proposed public policies to create more social capital. Putnam’s theoretical simplicity and his ability to reflect the importance of loose and tight social bonds has made the distinction widespread in the academic literature (Engners, 2016). However, given the adoption of a ‘catch-all’ definition focused on participation in networks, it fails to reflect the entirety of how social capital gets studied (Engners, 2016; Field, 2017).

A more comprehensive approach to social capital to pursue the objectives of this study would need then to include analysis of the structural power dynamics as in Bourdieu; understanding of reasons and motivations of why people cooperate (or not) as in Coleman; and quantitative and qualitative variables of participation in social activities and networks as in Putnam. When put together, these different theories and methodologies have a better chance to reveal to what extent the SFIWT is augmenting or depleting social capital to local-level drought risk management and response. For that, the definition of social capital that best suits this study comes from Hawkins and Maurer (2012), who adapted the concept of social capital put forth by Lin (2001) and defined it as the by-product of social interactions that are embedded in and accessed via formal and informal social relationships with individuals, communities and institutions. This definition doesn’t carry all relevant aspects of

31 social capital numbered above but provides some directions on where to look and what to consider when assessing social changes linked with the SFIWT in the Cariri region, where individuals and communities have been historically excluded from access to freshwater. This concept is interesting for this research proposal for two main reasons:

First, it defines social capital as the result of formal and informal interactions, pushing the researcher to include, but go beyond a structural analysis of social networks to also analyze the outcomes of these interactions as an integral part of the results. Second, it includes individuals, communities, and institutions in the analysis, opening the possibility to investigate horizontal and vertical social relationships, which are extremely important to understand drought and water scarcity in the semiarid region of Brazil, as will be detailed in the context section. In short, this definition opens the possibility to study both the social network structure - who relates to whom, how often, and under what terms – and characterize the many ways in which members of a community interact and participate in the local-level community’s life. Within this framework, this dissertation also identifies six social characteristics that are relevant to understand and measure social capital in disaster settings: 1) Empowerment and Subjective Well-Being; 2) Social Cohesion and Inclusion; 3)

Information and Communication; 4) Trust and Solidarity; 5) Collective Action and Cooperation; 6) Groups and Networks (Putnam, 1993; Pretty, 2003; World Bank, 2004; Aldrich and Meyer, 2015). Empowerment and Subjective-Well Being refers to people’s sense of happiness, personal efficacy, and especially their capacity to influence both local events and broader political outcomes (World Bank, 2004).

32 Social Cohesion and Inclusion is the various forms of divisions, differences, and conflicts within a given community. It refers to the mechanisms by which different groups are included or excluded from decision-making processes and key public services. Information and Communication refers to the quality and quantity of exchanged information and knowledge among people and groups, as well as the extent of their access to communications infrastructure (World Bank, 2004). It increases trust and contributes to the development of long-term relations between people (Putnam, 1993; Pretty, 2003). It is the how people access crucial local information and what circulates in the social networks, which direction they go, and who benefits from it. Trust and Solidarity are the confidence people have in working together and invest in collective activities knowing that others will also do so (Pretty, 2003). “This category seeks to procure data on trust towards neighbors, key service providers, and strangers, and how these perceptions have changed over time” (World Bank, 2004). When a society is pervaded by distrust or conflict, individuals tend to spend more money and time monitoring others and cooperative arrangements are unlikely to emerge (Ostrom, 2000; Pretty, 2003). Thus, trust reduces the transaction costs of social relationships (Durston, 1999; Pretty, 2003). Without trust and consequent local- level cooperation to reach a common goal, water resource management and drought risk reduction, response, and recovery are doomed to fail. In order to have trust among people and groups, networks must adopt a set of norms and rules, which give parameters to individual and group behaviors within the limits of social interests. They are the sanctions and rewards agreed upon and serve as

33 a guide to individual investments on social goods. Formal and informal norms and rules, and the quality of their enforcement, can augment or deplete social capital. Groups and Networks is the nature and extent of a household member’s participation in various types of social organizations and informal networks, and the range of contributions that one gives and receives from them (World Bank, 2004). It is also known in the literature as connectedness, defined as the quality and strength of social relationships within, between, and beyond communities (Pretty, 2003; Aldrich and Meyer, 2015). It is generally divided into three types: bridging, bonding, and linking. Each type reflects variation of horizontal and vertical relationships and composition of networks (Aldrich and Myer, 2015). Bonding social capital describes the quality of connections among people and groups who share similar demographic characteristics, attitudes, and available information and resources (Putnam, 1993; Aldrich and Myer, 2015). It generally refers to relationships among individuals who are emotionally close and part of an immediate circle, such as friends or family, and result in tight bonds with similar interests and objectives (Adler & Kwon, 2002; Pretty, 2003). These strong connections facilitate cooperation and make bonding social capital good for providing informal social support in abnormal situations as disaster (Hurlbert et al., 2000).

Bridging social capital describes the capacity of such groups and people to make links with others that may have different views and demographic composition, such as socio-economic status, race, and education (Pretty, 2003; Aldrich and Meyer, 2015). This means of organizing social capital often relates people whose connections are more dissimilar and impersonal (LaLone, 2012). Bridging social capital expands the capacity of mobilizing resources found in the bonding type of connectedness level

34 and is more likely to provide novel information and resources of extreme value to disaster risk reduction, emergency response, and adaptation to climate change. Linking social capital, is the connection of regular citizens with those in power (Aldrich and Meyer, 2015). It is a vertical relationship that allows the influx of resources both ways top-down and bottom-up for mutual benefits. Aldrich (2012) expresses the opinion that even though bonding and bridging social capital convey signiﬁcant advantages for group members, linking social capital often makes the biggest difference in recovery processes. This conclusion was drawn upon the case study of the 2011 tsunami recovery process, in Japan. However, there are also some examples of downsides of linking social capital as well (Rahill et al., 2014), even though the literature tends to emphasize its benefits. The aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake showed that linking social capital can be used as channel to corruption, accentuate social differences, and lead to conflict. Not only linking social capital, but also bonding and bridging types of social capital have their downsides, and a complete analysis of local-level social capital networks and resources should also consider that it is not always a public good (Hawkins and Maurer, 2012; Rahill et al., 2014; Field, 2017). These examples of negative outcomes of social capital points out to the fact that studies on social change must go beyond the analysis of strength and quality of social capital in a pre or post- disaster situation. It must also consider who is being benefitted, why, and the impact in the larger social dimension; as well as possible negative outcomes of increasing one or more specific type of social capital in a disaster context. It is expected that the concept of social capital selected by this dissertation together with all four social features described above, will establish a framework and

35 give enough parameters to select relevant variables to the local-level context of the semiarid region of Brazil and a develop a methodology to capture social changes associated with the SFIWT.

2.4 Empirical Evidence of the Importance of Social Capital to Disaster Science and Management

Local-level social capital is a vital part of community efforts for response and recovery to environmental disasters and adaptation strategies to climate change (Ostrom, 2000; Adger, 2003; Pretty, 2003; Dynes, 2006; LaLone, 2012; Aldrich, 2012; Aldrich and Meyer, 2015). However, the potential roles and contributions of local-level social capital are frequently overlooked by policymakers and practitioners, who have underutilized social cohesion and social networks in disaster planning and management (Lalone, 2012; Aldrich, 2010; Aldrich and Meyer, 2015). A more common policy to minimize the impact of disasters and climate change has been focused on strengthening physical infrastructure (Ostrom, 2000; Aldrich and Meyer, 2015) like diversion of rivers, inter-basin water transfers, and construction of dams and reservoirs, as in the case of drought in the semiarid region of Brazil (Arons, 2004; Passador & Passador, 2010). Investing in social structures, like social capital, has been showing interesting results and a great potential as an alternative approach to deal with disasters and cope with climate change. Many micro-level cases have contributed to the understanding of how individuals and communities can have access to physical, financial, and technical resource by activating their social networks and coordinating efforts before, during, and after disasters.

36 As in Dynes (2005, 2006), bonding social capital, or the individual immediate circle of friends and family, increases the chances of individuals to be rescued, seek medical attention, take preventative action such as evacuate, and receive assistance from others during emergency situations. Following the studies of Dynes, Hawkins and Maurer (2010) and Aldrich (2012) also concluded that bonding social capital allows people to receive early warnings, undertake disaster preparation, locate shelter and supplies, and obtain immediate aid and initial recovery assistance. On the other hand, a study with 12 Sub-Saharan countries showed that bonding social capital (intra-community norms of cooperation and trust) worked as an impediment to the adoption of new agricultural techniques to cope with drought and climate change, indicating that an inward-looking mode of behavior can displace time and resources away from local-level agricultural innovation (van Rijn et al., 2012).

Paul et al. (2016) reached a very similar conclusion when studying levels of trust and community-improving activities to adapt to climate change, stating that “a negative relationship between household adaptation and trust is surprising, as it suggests the possibility that social capital is unhelpful or even detrimental to adaptation” (Paul et al., 2016). However, the first study on Sub-Saharan countries revealed that bridging social capital, more specifically networks that extend beyond the local village, creates access to new knowledge, technologies, and resources, and is linked with the adoption of agricultural innovation (van Rijn et al., 2012), such as less water consuming agricultural irrigation or livestock diversification. In post-disaster contexts, social capital can act as a key component of financial resources, emotional support, mutual assistance, and information to tackle challenges (Cai, 2017). Through an examination of more than 130 municipalities’ recovery

37 processes after the post-Japan earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima nuclear accident, Aldrich and Meyer (2015) concluded that municipalities which had higher levels of trust and interaction had lower mortality rates and more effective recovery despite their levels of damage, economic resources, and assistance from the government. Another study on the same region also revealed that “resilient communities require both horizontal and vertical connectivity” (Aldrich and Ono, 2016), referring to bonding (horizontal) and linking (vertical) social capital to access resources through political influence. In another article about the Kobe earthquake in Japan, Aldrich (2011) goes even further and states that “social capital proves to be the strongest and most robust predictor of population recovery after catastrophe”. Higher feeling of trust and perceptions of fairness in the community (measures for bonding social capital) were also related to increased household preparedness and mitigation measures among Mexican-Americans in disaster prone areas whereas organizational membership (a proxy for bridging social capital) had no effect (Reininger et al., 2013). Finally, the concept of social capital has also been introduced in the field of environmental sciences, specifically regarding environmental policy and natural resource management (Pretty 2003; Jones, 2009). Several studies have indicated that higher levels of social capital may lead to improved environmental management by communities (Ostrom, 2000; Adger, 2003; Pretty, 2003; Jones, 2009). Moreover, regarding water resource management, social capital has been associated with improved social learning to manage water resources (Pahl-Wostl et al, 2007; Pahl- Wostl et al 2008), community engagement in building support for alternative water

38 sources (Dean et al., 2016), greater perceived benefits of wetlands management (Jones et al., 2009), and greater support for water funding initiatives (Jones et al., 2011). Many other examples could have been drawn from the literature on how social capital can improve local level adaptation to climate change and mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery from disasters. However, there is an evident gap in the literature about the outcomes of human interventions to mitigate disasters and promote climate change adaptation on local-level social capital, to which this study intends to contribute by studying the short-term impact of the SFIWT on the social capital of the communities that are part of the Cariri region, in the semiarid of Brazil.

2.5 The São Francisco Inter-Basin Water Transfer

2.5.1 History Since the nineteenth century, the SFIWT project has been proposed by many groups of scientists and politicians as the definite solution for social, economic, and environmental problems in the semiarid region of Brazil. The first proposal was made in 1818 and discussed for more than a century until discarded in 1920 due to lack of technology to overcome geological barriers (Henkes, 2014). In 1981, after a period of severe drought, the project got back on the political agenda and started to be reconsidered by subsequent governments but rejected for different motives like economic resources and judicial problems (Castro, 2011). In the beginning of the 90’s, the main hurdles against the project were political rather than technological, imposed by the local oligarchy who retain 80% of all arable lands and who also control the use and distribution of water in the region (Péricles, 2012). They rule by the principle of scarcity, exchanging water for favors, votes, and work, in what

39 became known as the “industry of drought” in Brazil (Arons, 2004). With the diversion of the São Francisco River, these powerful families and politicians who compose the local oligarchy were too afraid of losing their main source of political control and started to put a series of barriers to stop the project. During the subsequent administration of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso

(1994–2002), the project was deliberately designed more slowly and for the first time environmental issues were discussed in public meetings (Campos & Studart, 2008). Nevertheless, discussions on the SFIWT were heated and incredibly divisive (Lee, 2009). In summary, those supporting the project considered the SFIWT as the definitive solution for drought related problems (Campos & Studart, 2008), arguing that it would bring social and economic development for the semiarid region by increasing agricultural production, attracting industry and large companies, creating jobs, and promoting urban development. The opposition claimed that the project would benefit only the wealthiest portion of the population, such as large construction companies and large-scale farmers, have a negative impact on the local indigenous population, and become an economic burden for the country. The project price tag was estimated at $2.5 billion dollars, but the Brazilian group charged with watching federal spending (TCU) advised that the Brazilian Government had “severely miscalculated the costs of the project” (Lee, 2009). It is worth mentioning that all funding for the SFIWT project would have to come from the Federal Government, since the World Bank refused to assist in the effort arguing that it presented too many social and environmental risks (Lee, 2009). Yet, the most emphatic and disturbing critique, especially from the environmental side, was that the SFIWT could cause the collapse of whole São

40 Francisco River basin (Campos & Studart, 2008; Lee, 2009; Péricles, 2012; Henkes, 2014). After years of heated debates and intense political opposition, the constructions finally started in June 2007. A court order moved by a joint of civil society organizations tried to stop the construction in December 2007. The main illegalities they pointed out were: lack of consultation with affected populations; lack of authorization by the National Congress for the use of water resources in indigenous lands; absence of municipal environmental licenses of affected municipalities; misalignment with the National Water Resources Policy and the Ten Year Plan of the São Francisco Basin; omissions of major environmental impacts in the Environmental Impact Report; disagreements between the National Council of Water Resources and the Basin Management Committee; and an affront to the administrative morality and reasonableness in the use of public resources (Lee, 2009). The judicial order was suspended one month after, and the construction re-started in January 2008.

2.5.2 Technology and Complexity The SFIWT project is the biggest water infrastructure of Brazil. It has a total of 300 miles of water canals connecting six different watersheds, with the objective of ensuring water security for 12 million people spread over 390 different municipalities. It will create a complex system of integrated small dams and artificial reservoirs connected by 450 miles of water tunnels, aqueducts, and tubes pumped by more than 2,000 machines controlled by different kinds of technologies and operational systems (Ministry of National Integration, 2004). The SFIWT has two water channels: One heading north (Northern Axis) and the other heading east (Eastern Axis) from the São Francisco river (Fig. 1). The

41 project includes nine pumping stations, 27 aqueducts, eight tunnels, 35 water reservoirs, two hydroelectric plants, and connects 6 different watersheds (Andrade, 2011).

Figure 1: São Francisco Inter-Basin Water Transfer. From the Environmental Impact Report. Ref. (Ministry of National Integration of Brazil, 2004).

2.6 The Semiarid Region of Brazil

The semiarid of Brazil is one of the poorest regions of the country, home for more than 23 million people. It comprises an area of 370,700 mi² stretching over nine federal states, totalizing almost 10% of the total area of Brazil (IBGE, 2017), equivalent to the size of Texas and Colorado states combined. Hydrologically, it is characterized by a reduced water availability and very limited storage capacity of

42 rivers, where most of the rivers are intermittent, with just a few exceptions that are perennial through streamflow regulating reservoirs (CENAD, 2014). According to Cirilo (2008), the Brazilian semiarid region presents conditions more difficult to overcome than other semiarid regions of the world. For the most part, its soil is very shallow, with rock that is almost protruding, which compromises the existence, recharge, and quality of aquifers. Even though the semiarid region of Brazil has the highest precipitation rate among semiarid regions of the world, between 250 – 800 mm per year, high temperatures lead to high rates of evaporation that exceed 2,500mm/year (Campos, 2006), few perennial rivers (CENAD, 2014), and the highest concentration of population among the semiarid regions of the world which generates excessive pressure on water resources (Cirilo, 2008). Here it is important to distinguish between drought and water scarcity. While drought can be attributed to those local natural characteristics mentioned above, water scarcity is the outcome of political decisions and human activities that extract more water than naturally available. Water scarcity in the semiarid region of Brazil can be only fully understood if also considering social, economic, and political processes that create and maintain vulnerabilities in the region. Although geological and hydrometeorological characteristics play an important role as triggers for drought, it is well documented that the primary factor for poverty, starvation, crops failure, and rural- urban migration is not lack of water, but lack of investments in social welfare, public infrastructures, urban and rural planning, and risk mitigation measures (Arons, 2004; Tomé Silva, 2012). If they had all these, the water naturally available in the region could be captured, optimized and distributed using the great variety of local technologies such as underground dams, boardwalk cisterns (cisterna calçadão),

43 agroecological crops, drought resistant seeds, and many others mapped and described by both Gualdani et al. (2015) and de Souza et al. (2017). Throughout decades, many actions and public policies were implemented in the attempt to minimize the effects of drought in the semiarid region of Brazil. Nevertheless, none of them obtained permanent results (Passador & Passador, 2010).

One possible explanation from the disaster science perspective is that disaster mitigation actions are prone to fail in places with a high level of economic inequalities, like the semiarid region of Brazil, if not considering social and economic differences within communities (Gillingham, 2001) and integrating the most vulnerable and marginalized groups in the decision-making and implementation processes (Cutter, 2000; Adger, 2003; Brondizio et al, 2009; Lavell, 2012; Aldrich, 2012).

The semiarid region of Brazil has a long history of political decisions regarding local water resource management that excludes the most vulnerable population and manipulates water resources in exchange for votes, cheap labor, and control of local economy (Arons, 2004). Constantly referred as the “politics of drought” or “the industry of drought”, this systematic social marginalization practice fails to accommodate participation in the management and administration of water resources by actors other than the local elites (Jucá, 1994; Arons, 2004). This statement is important for the understanding of social capital in the region, since it shows lack of bridging social capital between marginalized populations and the local elite, also evidencing low civic engagement and participation regarding water access and management in the semiarid region.

44 The first public drought mitigation plans, which would end up benefitting the local elite, started with the occupation of the semiarid land in the beginning of the 18th century, when a Royal Charter (1701) prohibited cattle raising activities along the coastal strip to 60 kilometers (37.5 miles) into the hinterland (Jucá, 1994). Thereafter, cattle raising started to play an important role in the regional economy together with cotton crops, introduced in the middle of that century (Campos & Studart, 2008). Over two decades, both human and cattle population grew rapidly, but the demand growth was not followed by any augmentation of the water supply, resulting in a very vulnerable population, highly dependent on small reservoirs and alluvial aquifer storage (Campos & Studart, 2008). From 1877 to 1879, the semiarid region of Brazil had its deadliest drought, known as “The Great Drought”, which caused the death of more than 500 thousand people and massive migrations to the Amazon and Southeast regions (Arons, 2004; Marengo, 2010). It also disrupted the local economy based on cattle raising and cotton crops, forever changing economic activities in the region (Lindoso et al., 2013). The Emperor Pedro II, ruler at the time, visited the most affected communities and, impressed by the horrors of famine, promised to sell until the last crown jewel to raise financial resources and minimize the problem. After that, even though not a single crown jewel was sold, drought mitigation solutions for the semiarid region of Brazil started to receive more attention and federal funds (Arons, 2004; Campos & Studart, 2008; Henkes, 2014). Basically, there were three groups of solutions: those favorable to dams and irrigation; those favorable to water transfer from the São Francisco River; and those favorable to changes in the economic profile of the region (Campos & Studart, 2008).

45 Dams and irrigation were the first strategy to be funded and implemented by the government, in 1909, executed by the National Department of Works Against Drought (DNOCS). Nevertheless, it has proved to be a great failure. Most of the dams and reservoirs were built on private properties but financed by the public funds at no cost. Owners, in turn, would be impelled to supply water for household use in their surroundings (Campos & Studart, 2008). These public investments were directed only to government supporters, increasing their wealth and pollical power, but with no benefit for poor family farmers, creating what Almeida (1982) called as a new class of ‘water lords’. After the construction of these privately managed reservoirs, the sharing of water could not be made because of land tenure issues, as the reservoirs were in law protected private properties (Campos & Studart, 2008). To solve this problem, the federal government also constructed truly public reservoirs across the semiarid region, although in a much smaller scale. But this strategy also failed, as extensive studies have shown. The extremely high rates of evapotranspiration and the low rainfall indexes of the region make the evaporation rate surpasses the regular flow of water in the reservoirs, compromising water supply even during minor drought (Gomes et al., 2001; Campos et al., 2002)

The other group of solutions to mitigate the impact of droughts started to be crafted in 1999 and are based in a different paradigm, which believes in local based solutions, respect for nature, protection of local fauna and flora, and investment in clean and social technologies. These groups of ideas are shared and implemented by a network of local organizations, commonly referred as the “Living with the Semiarid” network. This network is managed by the Semiarid Articulation, a regional

46 organization constantly promoting meetings, exchanges of knowledge across the region, and fundraising for local projects. Being part of this network is one of the main sources of social capital in the semiarid region, connecting local organizations with internal and external valued resources to mitigate droughts and adapt to local environmental conditions (Carvalho, 2006; Gualdani et al., 2015).

The Living with the Semiarid strategy is based on efficient and sustainable systems of production, and the creation of physical and virtual spaces to promote continuous education among rural populations (IRPAA, 2002). Specifically, it aims innovative actions and solutions to water accessibility and distribution, strengthening of social-cultural identities, elaboration of public policies to be implemented by local civil society, and strengthening local networks (Carvalho & Almeida, 2008). Even though there are several different local organizations involved with the

Living with the Semiarid strategy, they all have in common the use of participatory methods to promote dialogues, solutions, and contextualization of local problems, understanding that the local society is better positioned to propose solutions (Almeida, 2005; Carvalho & Almeida, 2008, Gualdani et al., 2015). In other words, they focus on increasing local level social capital by promoting social spaces for interactions and exchange of information, technology, and other resources.

Both strategies to mitigate drought mentioned above coexist in the semiarid region of Brazil nowadays, with different social and economic impacts. However, this study will assess the impact of a third and new solution: the SFIWT. From 2017 onwards, the SFIWT is coexisting with the previous projects and will also have its own impact in the most populated semiarid region of the world. At the same time, the outcomes of this mega-project will be inevitably influenced by the unique historical

47 and political context of the semiarid region of Brazil. Therefore, to understand changes in social capital due to the SFIWT and how these changes are contributing to the local capacity to cope with drought, this study analyzed all data gathered by interviews, survey, document analysis, and field observation considering both historical processes and the local social structure which are already having a pivotal influence in the outcome of this mega-project.

2.7 The Cariri Region The micro-region of Cariri Paraibano is located in the Plateau of Borborema (which means dry land in the local indigenous language, Tupi-Guarani) in the State of Paraiba, Northeast region of Brazil (Fig. 2). It has a total area estimated in 6.983,601 km² and is divided into East and West Cariri. East Cariri has 17 municipalities and

West Cariri 12. Together, all 29 municipalities have a total of 160,000 inhabitants (IBGE, 2017). Despite its small size, the Cariri region assembles some very particular features for the study of drought, water scarcity and, of course, the impact of the SFIWT on the local population. This because it is the first region receiving water from the SFIWT, and not by accident.

Figure 2: Cariri Region, state of Paraíba. Retrieved from: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cariri_Ocidental

The Cariri is characterized by a hot and dry climate and is considered one of the most vulnerable to drought and water scarcity in Brazil (Agra et al., 2006). Cabaceiras, one of the municipalities included in this research, has the lowest rainfall index of the country and is considered the driest municipality of Brazil (Medeiros et al., 2012). From 2009-2015, all municipalities in the Cariri region declared State of

Emergency due to drought at least once1 a year, or at least 7 times. The Cariri region is classified as sub-desert with tropical tendency, characterized by mean annual temperature of 25 °C and annual rainfall index near 300

1 Data retrieved from the National Civil Defense and Protection database, November 2017, at: http://mi.gov.br/web/guest/reconhecimentos-realizados

49 mm, with unequal distribution of the totals, having the dry and hot season up to 8 months a year (May to December), and the relative humidity of the air near 65% (Agra, 2006). These natural characteristics coupled with human activities have made the Cariri also a high-risk region to desertification in Brazil (Agra et al., 1996; Medeiros, 2012; Travassos & Souza, 2014).

While studying the desertification process in the Cariri, de Souza et al. (2008) found that its municipalities present high levels of social, economic, and technological vulnerabilities. They concluded that the desertification process is associated with removal of the natural vegetation covering and forest fires for subsistence agriculture. This practice is also responsible for the occurrence of soil erosion, that unchain the process of desertification and river silting, and consequently rural-urban migration (de Souza, 2008).

The agricultural productivity is low, due to lack of water and quality of the soil (Nascimento & Alves, 2008). The economy of the region is based on goat breeding, tourism, and firewood extraction. Some of its municipalities have a rate higher than 90% of household using firewood to cook (IBGE, 20172), and the lack of economic diversification contributes to a cycle of environmental depletion and extreme poverty in the region. The Cariri is one of the poorest regions of Brazil, and it is no surprise that the local population is anxiously expecting to be transformed by the waters of the Sao Francisco Inter-Basin Water Transfer.

2 Data retrieved from the IBGE database, November 2017, at: https://cidades.ibge.gov.br/

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The SFIWT is an ongoing process which presents an opportunity to study a real-life event while it unfolds and impacts millions of lives in the most vulnerable region to drought in Brazil. This dissertation asks: “What are the short-term impacts of the SFIWT in the social capital of municipalities of the Cariri-PB region in the semiarid of Brazil?”. To answer this question and verify the hypotheses elaborated in section 1.5. Research Hypotheses (p.9), this chapter will first justify the option for a case study research design and then describe each method employed for data collection and analysis.

3.1 Research Design: Case Study As Yin indicates (2003), case studies are preferred when examining contemporary events where social behavior cannot be manipulated and boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident. Both premises hold true for this study. The SFIWT is a contemporary event within a real-life context where social behavior is not being controlled or manipulated but observed and understood. In our case, the focus is on how the SFIWT is affecting people’s daily life and their relationship with family, community, local organizations, and politicians, and how these changes contribute to their capacity to deal with drought.

51 To investigate this complex setting, the case study method adopted here involved gathering enough information to permit a detailed analysis of the context (social structure of the Cariri region) to effectively understand the phenomenon (changes in local level social capital), as suggested by Berg & Lune (2012). Data from different sources were collected using quantitative and qualitative methods. On the quantitative side, it was applied a survey to compare levels of social capital before and after the SFIWT. However, the survey alone would not be enough to understand why the SFIWT is changing the social capital in the region, and how the local population is restructuring themselves around this new source of freshwater. For a more in-depth and detailed analysis, the survey had to be complemented with qualitative data from semi-structured interviews, field observation, and document analysis. Even considering that the semiarid region of Brazil comprises a geographical space with different cultural expressions, the social structure of the region was driven by the same social-economic disadvantages and inhospitable local nature (Teixeira, 2016). Currently, the semiarid region is still characterized by similar levels of poverty (Teixeira, 2016) and similar strategies to cope with drought (Magalhaes, 2016; Marengo et al., 2017), not to mention that SFIWT was designed to benefit those who share very similar vulnerabilities to drought (Ministry of National Integration, 2004).

Therefore, the findings of this research are potentially transferable to other areas of influence of the SFIWT. From this point of view, this research can also contribute to provide insights into literature on social capital in the semiarid region of Brazil and potential impacts of the SFIWT on local populations and social structures, configuring an instrumental case study.

52 3.2 Data Collection and Analysis Data collection for this research was carefully planned and carried out in two phases. Together, both phases lasted more 3 years. The first phase was the longest and took almost 3 and half years. It started in October 2015 and ended in May 2018. This first phase was dedicated to collect primary and secondary data sources to fit three distinct objectives.

First, to gather as much as information available about the SFIWT: history, technology, dimension, primary and secondary objectives, areas of influence, conflicts, risks, environmental impacts, and main alternatives for this megaproject to mitigate, respond to, and recover from drought in the semiarid of Brazil. Second, to understand the context. From environmental characteristics of the Caatinga biome in the semiarid of Brazil to the role of political, economic, social, and cultural processes in shaping local social structure, network, and vulnerabilities to drought in the Cariri region. Third, to understand the link between social capital and disasters. The importance of social capital for disaster risk reduction, levels of social capital in the semiarid region of Brazil, social structure and network, and impact of mega projects in the social capital of arid and semiarid regions.

After two years and a half of intensive studies on these three major topics, I could finally move on to the second phase: data collection. I spent 25 days in the Cariri region during the month of April 2018. The fieldwork strategy included formal and informal interviews, participation in local events related to the SFIWT coordinated by local NGOs and the academia, field observations in all 8 municipalities included in this study, and more than 600 miles traveled into the East Cariri region, including rural and urban settings. During the fieldwork, I could also have access to

53 archival documents, videos, and photos on local social structure, social capital, and of course the history and short-term impacts of the SFIWT. In May 2018, I started processing and analyzing all data collected during the fieldwork. The first step was to transcribe all formal interviews and prepare them for the coding process. Then, I organized all documents (i.e. fieldwork report, transcription of the interviews, presentations, and all sorts of documents) into three major categories: 1) The SFIWT; 2) The Cariri region; 3) Social capital. The last step of data organization was to prepare an Excel table and transfer all information from the survey to an Excel file. Data analysis strategy was based on Patton’s (2002) description of a holistic perspective, where the phenomenon of study is considered a complex system that is more than the sum of its parts, with focus in interdependencies and system dynamics that cannot be reduced to a few discrete variables and linear cause-effect relationship. A detailed description of each data collection and analysis strategies used in this case study (Survey, Semi-structured Interviews, Field Observation, Document Analysis) can be found below.

3.2.1 Quantitative Survey: Social Capital Questionnaire

The objective of the survey was to capture changes in the local-level social capital that can be associated with the SFIWT in the Cariri region. For that, it was crucial to identify correct operational measures for understanding local social networks and the flow of resources through that network. Some important tools to measure social capital have been already designed and validated by national and international research institutions. Among them, the

National Social Capital Benchmark Community Survey from Harvard University

54 (2001) is the largest and most commonly used survey of social capital (Aldrich and Meyer, 2015). It measures everything from number of people giving blood, to hanging out with friends, participating in various groups and associations, levels of trust, participation in group, and even the diversity of friendship patterns (National Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, 2001). It surely captures many aspects relevant to this study, but there are two main problems to use this survey. The Social Capital Benchmark Community Survey needs to be translated to Portuguese and validated before application in the Cariri context. The other problem is that it explores many other variables that are not socially nor culturally relevant for the context of this study as, for example, questions about trust in different ethnicities as African Americans, Latinos, and Asians, since the population of the Cariri is homogeneous. For those reasons, it would take too long to translate, adapt, and validate the adapted version in Portuguese to the purpose of this study. Instead, the Integrated Questionnaire for the Measurement of Social Capital (SC-IQ), developed by the World Bank, is also an internationally recognized questionnaire to measure social capital and it has a Portuguese version. The SC-IQ measures the six dimensions of social capital mentioned above at the household level and was designed based on previous survey work on social capital, sound literature, and the input from an interdisciplinary World Bank advisory group (World Bank, 2004). Before launching the SC-IC, it was subject to extensive input and critique from an external panel of expert advisors and was pre-tested in Nigeria and Albania. This instrument also presents and even incentivizes adaptations to different contexts and purposes, as it stresses that “(a) not all listed questions are likely to be useful in all places; (b) not every phrasing of a particular question is likely to be appropriate in

55 every context, and/or to translate easily into other languages; and (c) several locally- important issues may need to be added” (World Bank, 2004). Another advantage to use the SC-IQ is that this questionnaire has questions comparing social capital before and after a critical event, in our case, the Sao Francisco Inter-Basin Water Transfer, and it comes with a user’s guide with suggestions for data analysis.

This survey instrument thus reflects the concept of social capital used in this research proposal and at the same time influenced the choice of researching the six social capital dimensions that were described in the section 3.2.: 1) Groups and Networks; 2) Trust and Solidarity; 3) Collective Action and Cooperation; 4) Information and Communication; 5) Social Cohesion and Inclusion; 6) Empowerment and Subjective Well-Being. Considering all these factors, using the SC-IQ allowed this study to investigate the structural component of social capital (groups and networks and social cohesion and inclusion); the cognitive and individual dimensions of social capital (trust, solidarity and norms); the main ways in which social capital operates at the local-level (collective actions and cooperation, and flow of information); and major areas of application or outcomes (empowerment and subjective well-being), as organized in Table 1.

56 Table 1: Dimensions, definitions, and indicators of Social Capital

Dimensions of Social Definition Indicators and Variables Capital Groups and Nature and extent of a - Participation in formal and Networks household member’s informal types of organizations. participation in various - Types of local-level types of social organizations and services they organizations and provide. informal networks, and - Benefits of participating in the scope of the these organization. network and the - Frequency of participation. internal diversity of - Internal diversity of local-level membership. organizations. Trust and Solidarity Confidence people have - Levels of trust within the in working together and community. invest in collective - Level of confidence in the local activities knowing that and state governments. others will also do so - Solidarity and contribution to the local community. Collective Action Collective actions by a - Participation in voluntary and Cooperation group of individuals in activities at local or regional the pursuit of a level. common objective. - Existence of community interaction to influence local development actions. - Participation in local-level decision making regarding water management. - Cooperation during periods of drought. Information and Quality and quantity of - Access to local-level and Communication exchanged information regional information. and knowledge among - Main channels of information people and groups, as and types of communication. well as the extent of - Local communication their access to infrastructure. communications infrastructure

57 Social Cohesion and Divisions, differences, - Existence of local-level conflicts Inclusion and conflicts within a regarding racial, social, cultural, given community. It political, religious differences. refers to the - Existence of populations with mechanisms by which no access to public services or different groups are excluded from social activities. included or excluded - Sense of security and violence from decision-making at the local-level. processes and key public services. Empowerment and People’s sense of - Existence of policies or Subjective Well- happiness, personal programs involved in generating Being efficacy, and especially local development in the their capacity to community influence both local - Participation in some of these events and broader policies or programs political outcomes - Existence of technical assistance for agriculture - Frequency of technical assistance

Sampling The sampling process was first intended to be random, where every individual of all municipalities selected for this research had an equal and independent chance of being chosen for the study (Onwuegbuzie and Collins, 2007). However, field conditions demanded some adjustments in the sampling method. Due to time constrains and differences in the reach out capacity of each 29 volunteer who applied the survey, a mixture of sampling techniques was adopted as described in Table 2.

58 Table 2: Sampling method for the application of the survey by local volunteers

Municipality Volunteers # of Surveys Sampling Method Applied Boqueirão 3 community 18 Systematic health agents sampling Cabaceiras 6 community 29 Systematic health agents sampling Camalaú, Congo, 5 undergraduate 44 Random sampling Monteiro students of the Federal University of Campina Grande (UFCG- Sumé), Department of Agroecology Caraúbas President of the 40 Convenience Union of Rural sampling Workers Caturité 6 community 22 Systematic health agents sampling São Domingos do 7 community 30 Systematic Cariri health agents sampling Monteiro President of the 30 Convenience Lafayette Rural sampling Productive Village TOTAL 29 volunteers 213

Despite differences in the sampling techniques applied by each group of volunteers, the demographic characteristics of the sampled population were very similar to the characteristics of the total population described by the National Institute of Geography and Statistics of Brazil (IBGE, 2010) and by the Human Development Index (UN-HDI, 2010), as showed in section 4.3 Characteristics of the Sampled Population. The results suggest that this adjustment in the sampling method did not

59 affect the accuracy of the sampled population in representing the total population of the eight municipalities selected by this research. Below, I provide more details of how volunteers were contacted, trained, and how the survey was distributed and applied in each municipality:

- Community health agents: The UFCG have a long history of

working with community health agents for the application of surveys in the

Cariri region. This is because the community health agents are distributed in

small areas to cover all geographical locations of their municipalities,

providing a representative sample of their territory when applying surveys.

Since they are used to work with UFCG, it was easy to contact them and have

their support for this study. However, I only had entrée for four municipalities:

Boqueirão, Cabaceiras, Caturité and São Domingos do Cariri. The procedure to

mobilize the community health agents was standard, and I just followed the

orientations of UFCG professors: First, we had individual meetings with all

coordinators to inform about the content and objective of the survey. Then, we

read together the Informed Consent and addressed possible doubts. The next

step was to read together the whole survey, also addressing doubts and

listening to comments and suggestions. Only then, we started to make the

application plan, where the coordinator would say how many surveys they

could apply and how many agents they could mobilized to meet our deadline. I

also gave them an Application Guide (Appendix 3) with all instructions and

60 my contacts in case of any doubt. For each package of 30 surveys I paid a quantity equivalent to US$40 (forty dollars).

They used a systematic sampling technique, as usual when working with UFCG, where they divide the total number of households by the total number of surveys to select the households they will apply the survey. For example, if a community health agent had 20 households in his or her working area and was assigned to apply 5 surveys, they would apply one survey on every four households visited. - Volunteers – Undergraduate students: All volunteers who applied the survey in Camalaú, Congo, and Monteiro were undergraduate students of the department of Agroecology of UFCG. This group of students was doing a research in some municipalities of the Cariri and agreed to include the social capital survey in their fieldwork. They had already applied a random sampling technique to select their own sampled population and did the same for the social capital survey. I scheduled a training session with all volunteers and followed the same procedures adopted with the health community agents

(described above). The only difference was that they could applied one survey on each other before taking it to the field and we had more time to address doubts and anticipate possible challenges. They also received around US$40

(forty dollars) for every 30 surveys applied.

- President of the Union of Rural Workers: I met him during the

Water and Agroecology Caravan and he accepted to apply 40 surveys in his

61 municipality, Caraúbas, in exchange of US$50 (fifty dollars). During the

training he exposed the impossibility of using a systematic sampling, as

suggested, and I agreed that he could apply the survey in members of his

Union whenever it was more convenient to him. In other words, a convenience

sampling technique. After local events and meetings promoted by the Union of

Rural Workers and during field visits, he would ask people if they could

answer the surveys. It took him 2 months to complete all 40 surveys and he

had to mail them to me.

- President of the Lafayette Productive Village: As part of the

Caravan of Water and Agroecology, I participated in a focus group with

residents from the Lafayette Productive Village about their access to water

from the SFIWT. After the meeting, I took the contact of the president of the

local association of residents of the village and contacted him to ask if he could

apply some surveys on residents of his neighborhood. Then, I followed the

same procedure adopted with all other volunteers and health agents and we met

him for almost two hours of training. He applied surveys in 30 households out

of 60 families living in the Lafayette Productive Village using a convenience

sampling technique, as he would simply ask to whoever was available to

answer the survey. He got paid US$ 40 (forty dollars) for his contribution.

In terms of sample size, the Sao Francisco Inter-Basin Water Transfer is providing water to 29 municipalities of the Cariri region, but this study will

62 concentrate in 8 municipalities of the Cariri region (Boqueirão, Cabaceiras, Camalaú, Caraúbas, Caturité, Congo, Monteiro, and São Domingos do Cariri). These municipalities were selected because, beyond being directly benefitted by this megaproject, they are all cut by the Paraíba river, which is the carrier of waters from the São Francisco river across the Cariri region. In this sense, these municipalities should be the most affected the SFIWT in the Cariri region, where water from this mega-infrastructure has been made available since March 2017. Together, these 8 municipalities have a total a population estimated in 79,129 (IBGE, 2018). Considering the size of the population, a sample size of 213 individuals give us a confidence level of 95% with a margin of error of 7%. I was expecting having more questionnaires responded until the end of the fieldwork period to reach a margin of error of, at least, 5%. However, time and economic resources were the biggest constraint to reach this objective. The survey was performed at the same time as the semi-structured interviews and field observations, and therefore the data collection was non-sequential. This design permitted that the results of one method didn’t influence the others. Another important issue to consider is time. Since this study had limited fieldwork time to collect data, a sequential data collection (where the interviews would come after the survey data collection and analysis of preliminary results), was not be possible. It is important to mention here that the relation between the survey and the interviews was a multilevel relationship, which involves the use of two or more sets of samples that are extracted from different levels of the target populations (Onwuegbuzie and Collins, 2007). The survey involved the sampling of local-level household representatives, while the interviews were made with individuals who work

63 for local, state, or national level institutions, who occupy managerial positions, and have a direct relationship with the local population. This design facilitates the triangulation of information, since this study had access to different points of view of the same event. Data Analysis of the Survey

This survey had two main objectives. The first objective was to compare levels of social capital before and after the Sao Francisco Inter-Basin Water Transfer. The second was to inventory existing levels of social capital in the Cariri region for future studies and comparisons. The data analysis of this questionnaire was primarily tabular in nature, and, given the content of the SC-IQ, centered on six sets of indicators of social capital: 1) Groups and Networks; 2) Trust and Solidarity; 3) Collective Action and Cooperation;

4) Information and Communication; 5) Social Cohesion and Inclusion; 6) Empowerment and Subjective Well-Being (Table 1). Tabular analysis is a simple and convenient way to organize data and to extract the basic messages that the data contain (World Bank, 2004). In this study, it refers to analyzing each dimension of social capital through its set of variables, considering frequencies, probabilities, and percentages. As the earlier conceptual discussion has made clear, this analysis was anchored in the theoretical framework of social capital, considering six dimensions of social capital and distinctions between bonding, bridging, and linking social capital (World Bank, 2004; Onwuegbuzie and Collins, 2007; Aldrich and Meyer, 2015). First, each of six dimensions of social capital was analyzed separately. Then, after analyzing the results of the interviews, field observation, and document analysis,

64 the results of the survey were analyzed again from a more holistic perspective to understand how these data relate and complement each other. Therefore, the survey produced partial and overall conclusions regarding the impact of the SFIWT in the local-level social capital in the micro-region of the Cariri.

3.2.2 Interviews

As a secondary source of data, semi-structured interviews were conducted with local stakeholders from different municipalities of the Cariri region to capture their perception on local-level social capital, including relation of trust, reciprocity and exchange, norms and values, and connectedness (bonding, bridging, and linking social capitals) that can be directly associated with the SFIWT. The main objective was to triangulate these data with information collected from the survey, document analysis and fieldwork observation. From the total of 30 semi-structured interviews, 24 were conducted personally and 6 over Skype. 21 of them were audio recorded and transcribed. The other 9 interviews that couldn’t be audio recorded were written as a report immediately after the interview for accuracy. All interviews took place from April to August 2018 and were mainly focused on variables from three out of the six dimensions of social capital captured by the survey: - Dimension 1 - Groups and Networks: Structure of the social network,

participation in formal and informal types of organizations, benefits of

participating in these organization, frequency of participation, internal

diversity of local-level organizations.

65 - Dimension 3 - Collective Action and Cooperation: Participation in

voluntary activities at local or regional level, participation in community

activities to influence local development actions, participation in local-

level decision making regarding water management, cooperation during

periods of drought.

- Dimension 5 - Social Cohesion and Inclusion: Existence of local-level

conflicts regarding racial, social, cultural, political, religious differences;

sense of security and violence at the local-level; existence of problems

regarding violence in the community; characteristics of the most vulnerable

communities to drought.

These three dimensions were selected for two main reasons. First, investigating all six dimensions of social capital in a single interview would make it impractical to manage because of time constrains. When putting all questions and probes suggested by the World Bank together in a single document, plus other questions developed by me, I ended up with an interview guide with more than 70 questions. Second, because nuances and details given by these 3 variables are harder to find in documents or field observations and are more relevant to this study in terms of understanding social changes associated with the SFIWT. It doesn’t mean that data on other dimensions weren’t collected during the interviews, though. The very nature of semi-structured interviews allowed interviewees to touch on different dimensions of social capital and, at the same time, enabled me to pursue points of interest to the other three dimensions of social capital also considered in this research (Trust and Solidarity, Information and

66 Communication, and Empowerment and Subjective Well-Being). As found in Berg & Lune (2012), semi-structured interviews seemed more appropriate for this purpose for providing different associations and a wider variety of responses regarding participants’ experiences. The interview protocol was designed based on the World Bank’s (2004)

“Analyzing Social Capital in Context - A Guide to Using Qualitative Methods and Data” but adapted for the purpose of this research. It means that, while some questions of the World Bank’s guide were kept exactly the same, other questions were adapted or added to align the objectives of this research with the local context of the Cariri region. For example, before the questionnaire about social capital per se, I added questions about local water supply, access to water from the SFIWT, and participation in the local water management. Also, some questions were adapted to compare both periods before and after the SFIWT, while others were modified to capture aspects of social capital manifested in the local culture, as the use of cell battery radios as one of the main sources of information, for example.

Sampling A representative group of people involved in the Sao Francisco Inter-Basin Water Transfer were invited to individual interviews using, at the first moment, a purposeful sample. The sampling process was sequential, starting with professors at the Federal University of Campina Grande (UFCG), representatives of the Executive Agency for Water Management of the State of Paraíba (Aesa), and representatives of the biggest NGO in the region ASA (Articulation of the Semiarid), which is an umbrella organization for other NGOs working with water and food security in the semiarid region of Brazil. Then, a snowball sampling was used, asking the

67 interviewees if they could refer other people for a second round of interviews and so forth. All interviews were conducted in Portuguese, following strict ethical issues based on active informed consent, confidentiality, and transparency regarding the nature of this study as suggested by Rubin & Rubin (2012). In a total of 30 interviews,

18 were recorded and transcribed, while other 12 interviews were not recorded, but reported immediately after the end of each interview. The interviews included: - 6 local community leaders;

- 5 presidents of local NGOs;

- 4 family farmers;

- 3 representatives of the Executive Agency for Water Management of the

State of Paraíba;

- 3 municipal health managers;

- 2 municipal government employees;

- 3 professors from the Federal University of Campina Grande (UFCG);

- 2 community health agents;

- 1 former state deputy;

- 1 representative of the “Leite Cariri”, the only industry in the region

dedicated to dairy products.

In addition to the interviews, there was also a focus group with community health agents of Caturité, which was conducted by the coordinator of the local health center. She asked for all 14 community health agents to present themselves, tell how

68 many families they work with, the profile of these families, their access to water, and their impression of what have changed after the SFIWT.

Data Analysis of the Interviews To condense data from the interviews and establish clear links between the SFIWT and social capital in the Cariri region, this study adopted a directed content analysis. Directed content analysis uses existing theory to develop the initial coding scheme prior to start of analyzing data (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005). This coding technique allowed me to identify variables and gather data into the six dimensions of capital already established by the theoretical framework used in this study: 1) Groups and Networks; 2) Trust and Solidarity; 3) Collective Action and Cooperation; 4) Information and Communication; 5) Social Cohesion and Inclusion; and 6)

Empowerment and Subjective Well-Being. Even though the interviews were focused on only three of these six dimensions, as mentioned before, much information on the other three dimensions could be collected as well. These six dimensions are the same ones investigated by the survey, which are the key variables used to explain similarities and variations within the data. I started the coding process by familiarizing myself with the data. I spent a great amount of time reading all interviews, my annotations, and the field report.

Then, I started sorting all data collected during the interviews into the six dimensions of social capital investigated in this study. For that, as suggested by Hsieh and Shannon (2005), I highlighted all text that on first impression appeared to refer to social capital. The next step was classifying each highlighted text according to the six dimensions of social capital established by the literature used in this study. As the analysis proceeded, other codes were elaborated to identify details of each six

69 dimensions of social capital, as well as characteristics of bonding, bridging, and linking social capital in the Cariri region. For example, if someone mentioned during the interview he is engaging in more community activities after the SFIWT, it was coded as “Groups and Networks”, the first dimension of social capital according to the theoretical framework used in this study. During the second round, the same highlighted text received other layers of code to capture nuances such as “participation in community activities”. If this is a homogeneous community, then the highlighted text could even receive a third label such as “bonding social capital”, because he or she is increasing contact with similar people in his or her community activities. If this is a heterogeneous community or he or she is engaging with different communities or social strata, the highlighted text could receive the label of “bridging social capital”, because this person is interacting more with different people or groups.

After coding all interviews and making sense of the most relevant information for this study, the codes were compared for relations, similarities and dissimilarities among themselves. Then, they were compared with notes from the fieldwork observation and the results of the survey.

3.2.3 Field Observation

The field observation for this study can be divided in two parts: 1) Participation in the Water and Agroecology Caravan, and 2) Description of the Cariri context. The “Water and Agroecology Caravan” was an event coordinated by the Water Network Articulation for the of the Semiarid (ASA) in partnership with the Federal University of Campina Grande (UFCG), the Rural Youth Pastoral, the Dam Affected

People Movement (MAB), and the Landless Workers' Movement (MST). It sought to

70 understand social, economic, and environmental impacts of SFIWT on the municipalities of Monteiro, Camalaú, and Caraúbas (all of them included in this research). 90 people, including: local farmers, community leaders, representatives of local NGOs, and researchers from the UFCG, were invited to spend 3 days in Sumé (close to Monteiro) with the objective of knowing and understanding the social, economic, and environmental impacts of the SFIWT in the East Cariri region, exactly where this research took place. In the words of a local NGO representative: "The SFIWT is today the largest public policy for water resources in our state, so we need to understand how the water will be managed, what uses will be made, and how it serves the different populations of the semiarid". The first day was dedicated to an overview of the water crisis in Brazil and conflicts caused by the São Francisco Inter-Basin Water Transfer. This day started with presentations at the university and ended with a visit to the East canal, near the city of Monteiro. In the second day, the group was divided into 4 subgroups to visit different populations affected by the SFIWT in the municipalities of Monteiro, Camalaú, Caraúbas and São Domingos do Cariri. The third day the subgroups presented their impressions of the field visit and discussed some solutions for the negative impacts presented.

During the Caravan, I assumed a double role. At the same time that I was a regular participant, contributing to the diagnostic process, I was also an observer. As such, I could systematically record the varying aspects of how local NGOs cooperate and dialogue among themselves, how they interact with the local population, who are their members, how and why members participate in volunteer activities in their communities, and variations in social capital associated with the SFIWT.

71 I recorded the whole experience using a notebook, an audio recorder, and a camera. After each day of the Caravan, I analyzed my notes, photos, and listened to some of the audio files looking for the meaning underlying the actions I observed and how they could connect to the literature on social capital and contents from the survey and the semi-structured interviews.

The Caravan took only three days but provided me with invaluable data for this study. It also put me in contact with people who met the criteria established to participate in the interviews and who later became volunteers to apply the questionnaires in their communities. The remaining 22 days of my fieldwork in the Cariri included other four fieldtrips with the same objective of knowing and understanding the context. From these four field trips, three were made with Prof. Marx Prestes, my local adviser from the Federal University of Campina Grande (UFCG) to the municipalities of Boqueirão, Caturité, Cabaceiras, and São Domingos do Cariri. The other field trip was made alone but following a pre-arranged schedule of on-site meetings and interviews. The first field trip was to the municipalities of Boqueirão, Caturité, Cabaceiras, and São Domingos do Cariri, with Dr. Marx Prestes. In this field trip we visited rural and urban areas of all four municipalities. The focus was to observe the infrastructure of the urban and rural areas, test the questionnaires, and talk to the local population about the impacts of the SFIWT. After some adjustments in the questionnaires we scheduled a second field trip to distribute the questionnaires and train volunteers to apply them. Dr. Prestes and I went to the same four municipalities of the first field trip but taking another road and visiting other rural areas. This time, we focused on observing how public officials

72 would receive us, the infrastructure and organization of municipal secretaries, and what public agents could tell about social capital in the region before and after the SFIWT. This second field trip included four formal interviews: three with public officials from municipal health secretaries and one with a representative of the only cooperative in the region.

The third field trip was to the municipalities of Camalaú, Caraúbas, Congo, and Monteiro. The focus was to observe all sorts of impacts of the SFIWT, and of course, making sense of the other municipalities where the survey would be applied. At one point of this fieldtrip, which I did mostly alone, I was guided by a local resident from Monteiro who showed me the rural area where he lives and introduced me to local residents for informal talks and formal interviews. During this fieldtrip, besides observing the context, I could also get to know different drought mitigation strategies and the role of social capital in creating a social supporting system during droughts. The fourth and last field trip was made with Dr. Prestes to collect the questionnaires and make a second round of interviews in the municipalities of Caraúbas, São Domingos do Cariri, Cabaceiras, Caturité, and Boqueirão. This field trip was more than 20 days after the first one and changes in the quantity of water in the rivers could already be observed. There was much less water this time, preannouncing the beginning of the dry season. In the last municipality visited, Caturité, we could meet with all municipal community health agents and make a focus group to share their experience in applying the questionnaires and their perception on social changes associated with the SFIWT. The focus group was conducted by the

73 coordinators of the community health agents. With the permission of all participants, the focus group was audiotaped and then transcribed.

Fieldwork Data Analysis After each fieldtrip, I put together all my notes, impressions, photos, and informal interviews in a fieldwork report. Each sample-point could provide valuable information to complement and test the veracity of information gathered in the interviews, survey, and document analysis. Writing the fieldwork report right after each fieldtrip was also an important part of the data analysis. It forced me to remember details and nuances and connect them to what I previously read about the region. This exercise increased my level of understanding of the region and local social capital.

The fieldwork report became a valuable source of data and was revisited many times While writing the fieldwork report, I was constantly asking myself the following questions: - How the local infrastructure influences the social capital of the Cariri

region?

- What are the differences between urban and rural areas regarding access to

safe water?

- Who are the most vulnerable population to drought and how do they get

water? Are they being benefitted by the SFIWT?

- What are the most common drought mitigation strategies and how do they

work in the region?

- How do people cooperate among each other and with local institutions?

74 - What evidence does the context offer to support the hypothesis of this

study?

- What events or behaviors were typical and what were unusual considering

the social capital framework?

- Are there any patterns in what was observed? How different are the

municipalities selected for this study?

- Are there connections between what was observed and the findings of

similar studies? In what ways the observations changed or affirmed what

was found in the literature about the local context and social capital?

- What were the strengths and weaknesses of the observation method?

- What have I learned from the field observation?

Answering all these questions helped me analyzing data from the fieldwork observation by comparing the ﬁndings from the field with literature on social capital. Each fieldtrip was systematically analyzed and revisited many times during the data analysis process.

3.2.4 Document Analysis Another important source of data for this study were documents from different sources, collected to fit two distinctive objectives: 1) Building the context: Understanding the role of political, economic, and

social processes in shaping social capital in the Cariri region. This

information could be retrieved from historical documents describing the

occupation of the Cariri region, hierarchical social power structures, the

75 political role of water management and distribution, patterns of land

occupation, and role of social networks in accessing local resources.

Present information on local demographics and main social

vulnerabilities were also accessed and incorporated in this study.

Data to fit this objective came from different sources, but mostly acquired through: i) Online searches in the database administered by the University of Delaware (DELCAT); ii) Contact with professors from the Federal University of Campina Grande who sent me dissertations, legislation, peer-reviewed articles published in Brazilian journals, government documents, newspapers, and presentations; iii) Online searches in Google Scholar; iv) Online access to demographic information from the Census Bureau of Brazil (IBGE) on demographic.

2) History, management, and technology behind the SFIWT: Technical

characteristics, management style and structure of command, cost,

objectives, and local impacts. This information was retrieved mostly

from official public documents and reports released from implementing

agencies directly involved with the SFIWT. Online searches in DELCAT

and Google Scholar also helped in accessing peer-reviewed articles in

English and Portuguese, legislation, and government documents.

Complementary data were acquired through contact with professors from

the Federal University of Campina Grande and NGO managers such as

presentations and monographs on the SFIWT.

76 Data collection started in the beginning of the graduate course in Disaster Science and Management, in October 2015, since I already knew I was going to write my dissertation about the SFIWT, and lasted until the May 2018, when I collected documents on-site during my fieldtrip to the Cariri. As in Bowen (2009), document analysis is often used in combination with other qualitative or quantitative research methods as a means of triangulation to validate and corroborate data obtained during the study, and is particularly applicable to case studies. The document analysis to fit both objectives established above were conducted using different methods. To understand the context, all documents gathered to fit this objective went through a critical review. As in Grant & Booth (2009), a critical review begins with an extensive literature research, which is then critically evaluated by the researcher. It presents, analyses and synthesizes material from diverse sources and, in our case, resulted in a new interpretation of the existing data. Sources from multiple disciplines such as history, sociology, economy, and geography were assessed and evaluated through the lens of social capital. Even though in the majority of these documents social capital was not mentioned explicitly, information about all six dimensions of social capital could be extracted, using the same coding method used for the interviews. This because the literature on the social capital of the Cariri region, and even the semiarid region of Brazil, is too scarce for a comprehensive literature review. Apart from providing contextual richness, these documents were particularly useful in pre- and post-interview situations (Bowen, 2009), especially for adapting the World Bank interview protocol and checking interview data with the context and vice-versa.

77 On the other hand, documents on the SFIWT were easier to find and went through a process very similar to a literature review. The content of these documents covered a wide range of topics regarding the SFIWT and were just put together for a comprehensive understanding of the topic.

3.2.5 Triangulation and Verification

By examining information collected through document analysis, field observation, interviews and a survey, I was able to corroborate findings across data sets to reduce the impact of potential biases that can exist in a single study, as suggested by Bowen (2009). This constant exercise of analyzing parts and, at the same time, understanding the whole contributed to a holistic understanding process that was both exciting and exhaustive. Exciting because some pieces fitted perfectly, just like in a puzzle, confirming or refuting my hypothesis, but above all, by providing me the excitement of discovering something new and unexplored related to SFIWT and the social dynamics of the Cariri region. Exhaustive because sometimes it seemed like this puzzle had countless pieces that could be arranged and rearranged in infinite ways. Therefore, the combination of different frameworks and points of view from a large array of disciplines and the search for similarities and differences across data sets had to be done in a very systematic way. The first step was making sense of the context through document analysis, content analysis of the interviews, and constant reviews of my fieldwork observation notes. Based on these sources of information, I triangulated data to write about the historical process that shaped the local social structure, networks, and consequently social capital of the Cariri. The writing process always started with information from the document analysis, literature, and fieldwork

78 notes, and then complemented with relevant data from the interviews, which were constantly revisited during the whole process. For example, when analyzing documents about the formation of the Cariri society, as land distribution system, slavery, the role of the church, indigenous population genocide, among others, I would first establish important points in time and pivotal events that illustrate how local society was form and how different social strata relate to each other. Then, I would triangulate this information with data retrieved from interviews to understand how these historical facts influence the present time social structure, network, and of course, social capital. The second step was to analyze the demographic data and the infrastructure of all municipalities considered in this dissertation using the same method, always trying to understand the relevance of this information to social capital.

After having a good understanding of the context, the historical process, and main characteristics of local level social capital, I started to analyze data from the survey. These data were separated into the six dimensions of social capital and analyzed independently. Then, data from the survey that could complement, confirm, or refute some information in previous sections were inserted according to their relevance to each theme. The sections with the results of the survey for the six dimensions of social capital were then written following the opposite order of previous sections. First, all the results of the survey were separated accordingly to the dimensions they were exploring. Then, these results were compared with data from the interviews, document analysis, and fieldwork notes. The last step was, then, to revisit the literature on social capital for each dimension to interpret the results from the point of view of social and disaster science.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter will provide an overview of changes in social capital associated with the SFIWT in the first region to receive its waters, the Cariri region, state of Paraíba. The first section will describe the historical process that shaped the local social structure, networks, and social capital prior to the SFIWT. The second section is dedicated to characterizing the physical infrastructure of the municipalities considered in this study and provide insights of its importance to the analysis of local level social capital and changes in social dynamics due to the SFIWT.

The following sections will show and discuss the results of the survey, interviews, document analysis, and fieldwork in an integrated analysis of the main impacts of the SFIWT on the social capital of the Cariri and its possible implications to drought and water resource management. These sections are divided according to the six dimensions of social capital explored in this study: 1) Groups and Networks; 2) Trust and Solidarity; 3) Collective Action and Cooperation; 4) Information and

Communication; 5) Cohesion and Social Inclusion; and 6) Empowerment and Subjective Well-Being.

4.1 Social Structure, Network, and Social Capital Understanding possible implications of the SFIWT in the social capital of the Cariri region implies a good understanding of the historical processes that shaped both the local social structure and the local social network. Social structure and social

80 networks are central to the theory of social capital. First, because social capital pertains to the realm of social relations between humans (Rutten et al., 2010) or, in other words, the social network. Second, because the social network is a dynamic structure constructed within the social structure in a reciprocal relationship where they are constantly shaping and influencing one another. As in Coleman (1994, p. 302), social capital is not a single entity but a variety of different entities having two characteristics in common: “They all consist of some aspect of social structure, and they facilitate certain actions of individuals who are within the structure”. From a macro perspective, social structure consists of a matrix exhibiting the distribution of a certain population among the various social groups (Bunge, 1974) which are ranked-ordered according to cultural and social valued resources such as class, authority, and economic status (Lin, 2001). Lin (2001), in his theory of social capital, further assumes that social structures have a pyramidal shape in terms of accessibility, possession, and control of resources, concluding that “[T]he higher the position, the fewer the occupants and accessibility to positions. In terms of both number of occupants and accessibility to positions, the pyramidal structure suggests advantages for positions closer to the top”. The pyramidal social shape also implies that depending on the social layer in which you are born, you will have initial access to a certain amount of connections and resources. These connections, however, will be shaped by culture, context, norms and laws, which can facilitate or impair access to valued resources within the network. From a micro perspective, it is possible to visualize the social network, or the patterns of interaction among people and groups from the same or adjacent social hierarchical levels within the frame of the social structure. Generally, the most

81 accepted theories of social capital classify these social interactions into three categories: bonding, bridging, and linking social capital. When resources are gained by interacting with people from the same social hierarchical level, it is called bonding social capital. When these interactions are with occupants of different social hierarchical levels, it is known as bridging social capital. Finally, when resources come from connections with people in position of power, such as politicians, it is called linking social capital (Fig. 3).

Figure 3: Example of a pyramidal social structure and social capital types of connection (bonding, bridging, and linking social capitals)

Therefore, to investigate changes in local level social capital it is fundamental to contextualize it in a social structure first. Then, understand patterns of social interaction among people and groups within this structure. Only after these steps it is possible to assess how these social interactions change depending on internal and

82 external factors such as political decisions, technological innovations, and changes in water availability and accessibility, as in this case study. Another factor to be consider is time. Social structure and networks are the result of a historical processes shaped by natural forces and human relations. Thus, to capture any change in the side of human relations, it is necessary to know its past, processes, symbols, and main events. Only then is it possible to have indications of where it is going and how it is changing. Looking back to the formation of the Brazilian society, I found a very complex social system and a very interesting story. It all started when the first Portuguese ship docked in the coast of Brazil, in 1500. Thirty years later, in 1530, colonization started to take off and the influx of colonizers was increasing each year. They were being attracted by the promise of getting rich and starting a new life in a tropical and plentiful new continent. However, the local agricultural production did not follow the pace of colonization, and soon enough the first colonizers had to face a severe food crisis. To solve problems of food supply and, above all, guarantee land possession and regularize colonization (Motta, 2005; Alveal & Barbosa, 2015), the Portuguese Crown first divided the territory of Brazil into 15 sub-territories, or capitanias hereditárias (Fig. 4). These were 15 huge tracts of land that stretched from the Atlantic coast to the border established by the Treaty of Tordesillas with Spain. Then, in 1534, the Portuguese Crown donated these lands to grantees who were part of the small Portuguese nobility. In figure 4 is possible to see their family names and banners.

83 These fifteen Portuguese noble-grantees were now responsible for defending, colonizing, and exploring Brazil, supported by the wealthy kingdom of Portugal. It was a monumental task considering the continental dimensions of the new colony, the distance and dangers of crossing the Atlantic Ocean, and the constant fighting against French, English, and Dutch explorers along the shore of Brazil.

84 To facilitate this colossal task, the Portuguese Crown implemented in Brazil a land distribution system known as the sesmaria (Motta, 2005), which was decisive to build the local social structure as it is now, and consequently influence social capital in the Cariri until the present day. The sesmaria was created in Portugal before the colonization of Brazil, in

1375, for the resumption of its own agricultural production, which was in ruins after a long period of civil war and the black plague. This peculiar system was based in land concession under a hierarchical social system, where a land title was given by the king of Portugal to a grantee with the purpose of increasing food production. The grantees, however, were not the owners of the land and were not exempt from paying royalties to the monarchy. In Brazil, the sesmaria land distribution system was implemented from 1534 to

1822. As noticed by Motta (2005), this system of land concession implied the submission of those who received land titles to the Portuguese Crown, stressing that the new colony was under their hierarchical social structure. Under the system of the sesmaria, only those who had any ties with the noble class of Portugal (i.e., royal members, military, navigators, and explorers who had obtained honors), had the right of receiving land titles, which constitute essentially linking social capital, where resources are gained by social connection with people in position of power. The sesmaria land concession would also come with noble or military titles such as “duke”, “captain”, or “colonel”, determining their hierarchical position next to the top of the social structure and legitimizing their access to local resources. The new group of colonizers could explore Brazilian lands and profit from it. If, for any reason, they could not make the land productive, the sesmaria grantee was

85 forced to pass on the land concession to another settler who had an interest and means for working the land. Faced with this obligation to make land productive, many new settlers divided and subleased their land to small family farmers, who lived and worked on the land, but had no rights over it, in what constituted an illegal practice under the sesmaria land distribution system. After a while, these small family farmers grew in number and became a poor rural working class. Below them in the social structure there were only the African slaves. Historically, Brazil was the country to receive the higher number of African slaves and the last one in America to make slavery illegal, in 1888. In the Cariri, the hard work of making dry land productive came mostly from African slaves, even though the Portuguese also enslaved some of the indigenous population and killed the rest of them, who were known as the Cariris, giving name to the region, and the Tarairiús (Borges, 1993). Innumerable records from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries also show the strong presence of religious orders in the Cariri, especially the Jesuit Order, which played an important role in the process of local social organization. They were responsible for creating schools, assisting in the administration of the colony and, more importantly, “taming” native populations and African slaves by converting them to Christianity (Santos, 2015).

After almost 300 years of intensive and violent interactions among these different local actors under the rules of the sesmarias, this land acquisition system was suspended in 1822, right after the independence of Brazil. The Portuguese Crown was forced o leave Brasil and the vast land conquered by them with violence and blood was now in the hands of the sesmaria grantees who inherited those lands by family succession. With no legal obligations with the Portuguese nobility anymore, the

86 former sesmaria grantees were the sole owners of big tracts of land and all the natural resources that came with it, including water. They also seized the chance of occupying the political gap left by the Portuguese Crown, establishing themselves as the new political power in the country. This period in the Old Republic of Brazil is known as Coronelismo (Motta, 2005). The name Coronelismo is a reference to the title of

Colonel (in Portuguese: Coronel) given to landowners together with the sesmaria land title. The Coronelismo period, between 1889 to 1930, was characterized by big landowners being also the highest political authorities at federal and regional levels, especially in the countryside of Brazil. History books tell that this political practice entered in decline in 1930, but it was not extinct. It changed over time, but its influence can be seen in the Cariri region until now. As in Moreira et al. (2014), the land acquisition and distribution processes in the state of Paraíba (including the Cariri region), in its different historical phases, were always characterized by the concentration of land, surplus agricultural production for external markets, and the extreme exploitation of the rural worker. Many public documents and research articles agree that the land distribution and acquisition system in the Cariri is very much similar to what it was 300 years ago, only confirming that the sesmaria is the origin of big landowners across Brazil and responsible for the formation of local oligarchies who control natural resources until the present day (Lewin, 1987; Lazzarin, 2005; Motta, 2005; Moreira et al, 2014; Alveal & Barbosa, 2015). In this sense, the sesmaria had a huge influence in shaping the social structure and network of the Cariri, where big landowners occupy the top of the social pyramid and descendants of slaves and indigenous people the bottom (CPT, 2007). This

87 information is crucial to understand local social capital, since, as in Burt (2000), the strategic position of people and groups in the network has a major bearing on the flow of resources within the social structure. A statement offered by one of the interviewees who was displaced by the SFIWT (Interviewee 10, Productive Rural Village resident), illustrates the influence of the sesmaria in the region until the present day, April 2018.

My family’s home was here (points to a construction site of the SFIWT), a big house. I lived right here (points to the ground and pauses, teary eyes). My house was right here... But this land does not belong to my family, we lived in the land of Mrs. Maria [not her real name] as residents. What do you mean by “residents”, I asked him?

To be a resident is to live in someone's land, to take care of someone's land. In my case, I lived here in the land of Mrs. Maria. I started to take care of her land more than twenty years ago. Then, she allowed me to make my own home. Then, I took care of her place and lived here at the same time. In 2014, Mrs. Maria sold part of her land to the government for the construction of the SFIWT, including the small farm where this interviewee used to live with his family. They lost everything and were relocated to a settlement constructed by the government nearby, two miles from there. One year after this interview, he called me to say that he and other 60 families who are living in this new settlement, still don’t have pipped water. They still depend on water-trucks and are unable to start a plantation or raise cattle. He ended the call asking if I could help in anyway. Martins (1994, p. 27-28) points out that this social-territorial arrangement configures a political system based fundamentally on land possession mechanisms, where those excluded from rights to land were included in the tutelage of the rich rural

88 oligarchs as clients and protégés and repaid these favors with loyalty to defend the land. Because of this social-territorial political practice, Martins (1994, p. 29) noticed that “not only the poor, but all those who, in some way, depend on the state, are led to a relationship of exchange of favors with politicians. (...) Clientelism has always been and still is, above all, preferentially a relation exchange of favors for economic benefits, no matter what scale”. The importance of this historical process to social capital in the Cariri region can be elaborated in two statements or premises, which served as the background for the data analysis:

Premise 1: The local social structure and network were built under the principles and rules of the sesmaria land distribution system, leading to a hierarchical structure based on land possession where big landowners are in the top and descendants of slaves and indigenous people are at the bottom of the social structure.

The clearest evidence to support this premise is land distribution data in the Cariri at present. According to the Ministry of Agrarian Development (2004), until 1996, small rural properties accounted for 88% of total establishments, but occupied only 13% of the total area. The other 87% of land was owned by the local oligarchy.

From their disproportional percentage of land, almost 30% were over 1000 ha and belonged to less than 1% of the population (Tab. 3).

89 Table 3: Land distribution in the Cariri Paraibano (1996)

Total area per group of rural establishments Less 10 to 50 to 100 to 500 to More than 10 50 ha 100 ha 500 ha 1000 ha than ha 1000 ha Total Area 22.390 102.845 71.100 262.825 136.260 238.524 833.944 Number of rural 5928 4648 1067 1263 209 128 13.243 establishments Area (%) 3% 12% 9% 32% 16% 29% 100% Number of rural 45% 35% 8% 10% 2% 1% 100% establishment (%)

From the 90’s until the present day, however, there were successive land reforms in Brazil; of course, not enough to bring balance to land ownership and distribution in the country. This is especially true for the Cariri region. In 2006, for example, despite the forced land reforms won by rural workers after more than 20 years of struggles with big landowners, the Gini Index3 of land ownership in Paraíba was still very high: 0.822 (Moreira et al., 2014). Between 1984 and 2013, the state of Paraíba created 302 new settlement areas where 14,340 families could be resettled. However, these numbers represent only 6.5% of the total area of rural properties existing in 2012 in the state of Paraíba

(INCRA, 2012). In practical terms, it means that the impact of local land reforms is still very low, and it gets even worse if considering only the Cariri. From the total amount of land expropriated for agrarian reforms from 1984 to 2013 in the state of

3 In the Gini Index, 0 is perfect social-economic equality and 1 total inequality. Human Development Atlas Brazil. Retrieved from: http://www.atlasbrasil.org.br/2013/pt/perfil/

90 Paraíba, only 9,3% were in the Cariri region, representing only 5,1% of the total families resettled in the state (INCRA, 2012). These numbers can be explained, in part, by the theory of social capital. As noticed by Moreira et al. (2014), significant territorial changes at the municipal level took place where social organizations and rural worker associations were stronger.

According to the Land-Acquisition Database of Brazil4 (DATALUTA, compiled by Moreira et al., 2014), between 2000 and 2013, 226,694 people participated in 325 demonstrations to claim land, agrarian reform, better agricultural policy, social rights, infrastructure for settlements, rural credit, water, among others in the state of Paraíba. From these 325 demonstrations, the Cariri region accounted for only 7, with no more than 940 demonstrators. Most recently, in 2013, there were a total of 42 demonstration in Paraíba, but none were in the Cariri region. Zero. If considering only the number of families resettled because of demonstrations, the macro-region of the Borborema, where the Cariri is located, presents the lowest rates among all four macro-regions in the state of Paraíba. On the other hand, still according to the Land-Acquisition Database of Brazil (Moreira et al., 2014), the regions that had more demonstrations organized by rural workers and local NGOs had gain more land and had more families resettled. Therefore, land reform and consequent access to natural resources are directly related to organized social demonstration and pressure on local public policies.

4 DATALUTA is an institution dedicated to collect quantitative and qualitative information on land reform from different sources such as local press, official public institutions such as INTERPA (Earth Institute of Paraíba) and INCRA (National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform), and socio-territorial movements as the Pastoral Land Commission and the MST (Social Movement of Landless People).

91 According to Silva (2006), the low participation of individuals in demonstrations and social-change processes in the Cariri region can be attributed to, among other factors, hidden forms of coronelism, which descend from the sesmaria land distribution system. Interviews with representatives of the most influential local NGOs (PATAC,

ASA, and the Cariri Rural Workers Union) pointed to the same direction. They all told me that the Cariri region is a difficult region to work and implement new ideas and social projects. The reason is the strong influence of the local oligarchy, who has the power to prevent social programs promoted by NGOs to reach poor rural populations because of the historical clientelism that built strong loyalty bond between landowners and those who work in their lands. New ideas such as Agroecology instead of monoculture agricultural production, and social technologies such as the “One Million Cisterns Program”, which teaches how to build and maintain cisterns with local material to increase water security during droughts, had no traction in the Cariri so far. As one professor of the Federal University of Campina Grande stated (interviewee 01, from the UFCG):

Who controls water resources, access, and distribution in the Cariri? It's the oligarchy. They are the ones in power, they control everything. For you to change that, you must change the oligarchy. Economic development in the Cariri is equal to the development of the rest of the country… The difference is that, here, the development is still on a feudal basis. The patriarchy is very strong. The poor rural and urban populations go to the big farmer's house begging for anything. They give them two reais (more or less US$0.75) and the person leaves gratefully because they do not have any money. The exploitation of poor population is huge around here, still.

92 One fact that called my attention was that representatives of local NGOs didn’t let me record our interviews. They also didn’t want to sign the informed consent. When I asked them why, they gave me evasive answers, such as “there is no need for that” or “it is better if we could have an informal talk”. However, I suspect that they were afraid that I would reveal their identity and disclose their political opinion on the social impacts of the SFIWT. One thing that I’ve learnt during my fieldtrip to the Cariri is that water is a highly political and sensitive issue there, which should be treated very carefully. During the Caravan of Water and Agroecology (referred in section “Methodology”, pg.63), I could observe that the local social movements and NGOs are working in isolation, apart from each other. They work alone and don’t get involved in each other’s business. One example is the demonstration organized by

PATAC (local NGOs from Campina Grande which is trying to implement social projects in the Cariri) against the closure of two rural schools in the Cariri region. All demonstrators were participants of the Caravan of Water and Agroecology. There were no representatives from the communities that were being affected by the closure of the schools. No representatives of local NGOs who work with education. No people from neighboring communities. To be fair, there were only two teachers from one of the schools. Only one mother of students, but no students at all. The demonstrators were almost exclusively participants of the Caravan who were, for the most part, not from the Cariri. A representative of a local Rural Worker’s Union told me during the demonstration that the fact that local people didn’t adhere to the demonstration was due the “unblessed inheritance of the sesmaria”, referring to the fact that poor rural

93 people are still afraid to demonstrate against local political decisions because they know the link between big landowners, local resources, and political decisions. They know that they can lose benefits or be excluded from the next public policy to build rural roads or irrigation systems, for example. As Lewin (1987, p.421) concluded about the local oligarchic of Paraíba, “(they) rely heavily on political friendship in the context of a national society that enjoys distinction in Latin America as one whose elites have impressively resisted the forces of social mobility since World War II”. As mentioned before, Coronelismo in the Cariri region is still pretty much alive in the sense that land possession arrangements define patterns of social relation and access to resources. Thus, family-based power remains inextricably tied to concentration of economic power grounded in a modern latifundia (Lewin, 1987). Whoever has bigger and better lands has more influence on local policies and controls local resources, including the most valuable one in the driest region of Brazil: water. Among all local resources concentrated in the hands of just a few families, water is the most valuable in the Cariri, but can only be tapped in sufficient amount for production through social relationship with the ones in power, or at the top of the local social structure, leading us to the second premise: Premise 2: The ones who are positioned closer to the top of the social structure are better positioned to have access to water in exchange of other resources. Facts to support this premise can be seen everywhere in the Cariri, but especially in the history of local policies to minimize the effects of drought. As stated before, the whole semiarid region of Brazil has a large history of famine, forced migration, and death because of drought.

94 In 1906, the Government of Brazil created the first federal agency to mitigate and respond to drought, the Superintendência dos Estudo e Obras contra os Efeitos da Seca (Superintendence of Studies and Works Against the Effects of Drought). This agency would change its name twice before assuming its present denomination, in 1945, Departamento Nacional de Obras contra a Seca (National Department of Works

Against Droughts), or simply DNOCS (DNOCS, 20165). At the time DNOCS was created, it consisted mostly of engineers who favored the construction of wells, reservoirs, and dams to store water in the semiarid region, as well as roads and highways for quick shipment of supplies and evacuation (Lewin, 1987; Arons, 2004). The only problem was that “the vast majority of its wells and reservoirs were built in private properties” (Arons, 2004, p.94). This was the height of the Colonelism era in the political history of Brazil, and the construction of wells and reservoirs in private lands was a deliberate decision to increase their political influence and expend control over water resources. By benefitting big landowners in the semiarid of Brazil, politicians, who were related to them by family or friendship ties, were also securing clients’ support and votes in elections (Arons, 2004; Campos, 2014; Passador & Passador, 2010). This is an interesting case of resources exchange, at the highest level, only possible through social and political connections. Politicians and big landowners exchange water for votes with the same objective of maintaining themselves in power. This practice is known in the region as “voto de cabresto”, or something like “halting vote”. Take, for example, this account from a local NGO

5 Retrieved from: http://www2.dnocs.gov.br/historia

95 manager (Interviewee 22) who lived in the rural area of Campina Grande, close to the Cariri region:

I still can remember when I was a little girl here in the rural area of Campina Grande, more or less 30 years ago… My mother and I would go to a private reservoir to collect water, but we could only take water if my mother gives to the henchmen her ID and electoral title. During the elections we could take water. After the elections, we had to come back to take our last bucket of water and her documents.

Drought became a big business, a win-win situation for big landowners and politicians at the expense of environmental degradation and human suffering. Beyond expanding political power and control over water resources, droughts would soon start to involve large sums of money. National laws determine that the federal government must assist municipalities to respond and recover from drought through a mechanism of mandatory transfer of funds. Thus, every time emergency or public calamity is declared due to drought, the National Secretary of Civil Defense and Protection must first analyze the municipal emergency declaration, and, if accepted, use federal funds to respond to the situation. The federal response to drought in the semiarid region of Brazil is mostly based on public distribution of water to households using water- trucks. During the period of response, the water-trucks come to people’s houses to fill up their cistern (Fig. 5). However, all these water and water-trucks bought by the federal government are from the local big landowners who have private reservoirs and a truck fleet capable of transporting this water around. Remembering that these reservoirs were made by DNOCS with public resources in their private property, therefore, the owners of these private reservoirs are, then, reselling a huge amount of water to the federal

96 government and making millions of dollars per month. Even worse, the local population sees them as saviors, since they are the ones distributing water during periods of drought to the most needed population. Historically, this scheme is known as the “Industry of Drought” (Arons, 2004; Nelson and Finan, 2009; Passador & Passador, 2010). As in Nelson and Finan (2009, p. 303), “the reach of patronage is enrooted in everyday social interaction and is endemic at all levels of the political process.

Figure 5: Cistern filled by water trucks in the rural community of Pau D`Arco, Monteiro-PB.

97 As a result, even the policy programs designed to alleviate the consequences of drought, actually, contribute to the persistence of the underlying vulnerabilities by reasserting the patron-client relationship”. Just to have a dimension of how much the Federal Government spends with water trucks during droughts in the semiarid region of Brazil, in 2016, the federal government authorized, through a Provisional Measure, the “opening of extraordinary credit in favor of the Ministry of Integration - in the amount of R$789,947,044.00 [U$ 214 million] - for the emergency actions coordinated by National Secretary of Civil Defense and Protection of Brazil”6. The Ministry of National Integration, Mr. Elter Barbalho, said at that time (2016): "We are working to guarantee the operational cost of about 6,800 water trucks throughout the semiarid region, as well as fast-track infrastructure works to make water available to the most impacted communities by drought in our country”7. So far, little was made in terms of infrastructure as promised by the Ministry of National Integration in 2016, at least, not in the rural area of the Cariri where one of the most vulnerable population to drought lives. As explained by a professor from the UFCG (Interviewee 01):

Here in the Cariri it is necessary the poor population to exist for the local oligarchy, because if they did not exist, water-trucks would not be

6 Retrieved from the official website of the Government of Brazil at: http://www.brasil.gov.br/editoria/infraestrutura/2016/11/governo-aumenta-em-14- recursos-a-carros-pipa

7 Retrieved from the official website of the Presidency of Brazil at: http://www2.planalto.gov.br/acompanhe-planalto/releases/2016/06/governo-editara- medida-provisoria-para-garantir-custeio-de-carros-pipa-no-semiarido-anuncia-helder- barbalho

98 necessary. Water-trucks carries water for them, as if the government is helping during an emergency, but, in fact, it is the oligarchy making money with water-trucks. The large amount of money they spend every year with water-trucks could be used to build infrastructure…

In 2007, the Federal Public Ministry in Paraíba admitted in its official website8 that “The privatization of dams and reservoirs constructed with public resources by the

National Department of Works Against Droughts (DNOCS) was considered by the III National Conference of Food Security (CSAN), one of the most serious violations of the human right to water and food in the national territory”. Barbosa (2011), analyzed all DNOCS working in the state of Paraíba from 1951 to 1956, during the period where José Américo was the state governor. He found out that, from the total of 10 public dams built in the state of Paraíba, 8 were in municipalities where José Américo had won the elections in the year 1950. He concluded that, “when constructing dams in the proximities of municipalities, Jose Américo established a relationship of favors with the local political leaders, who, for the most part, were the owners of the large farms which had priority for the construction of dams and reservoirs, maintaining and enlarging their constituencies” (Barbosa, 2011, p.08).

Jose Américo, the state governor of Paraíba from 1951 to 1956, is just one example among many other governors in the state of Paraíba (and all over the Northeast of Brazil) who invested public resources to benefit big landowners by giving them control of water resources. After an exhaustive historical analysis of the

8 Retrived from the official webpage of the Federal Public Ministry of Paraiba, at: http://www.mpf.mp.br/pb/sala-de-imprensa/noticias-pb/mpf-pb-apura-acesso-a-agua- nas-barragens-da-paraiba

99 “Politics of Drought” in the semiarid region of Brazil, Arons (2004, p. 96) states that “the selection of dam locations was influenced by politics rather than by need and was intended both to contain cheap labor in specific geographic areas and to secure clients support and votes in the election”. The president of the Union of Rural Workers in the Cariri (Interviewee 13) exposed a similar opinion:

Big farmers here are rich, they can be mayor of a city or councilmen... They have high political offices, so they have good reservoirs… large reservoirs… So, historically, people who have access to water are the people close to them, the people who are on their side. So, there has been this dictatorship of water. I am very afraid that this water here [from the SFIWT] will become that same dictatorship.

Building reservoirs, dams and wells in the semiarid region of Brazil is as old as the colonization process by the Portuguese. However, with the creation of DNOCS, this kind of drought mitigation and response projects became an official public policy and were intensified across the semiarid region (Souza, 2008). Nevertheless, successive droughts demonstrated the ineffectiveness of DNOCS operations, which did almost nothing to assist the most vulnerable communities during drought emergencies (Arons, 2004; Nelson & Finan, 2009; Passador & Passador, 2010; Campos, 2015). Some authors account that this kind of “politics of drought” made the situation even worse, increasing big landowners’ wealth and power, with no benefit for poor family farmers, and leading to the creation of a class of “water lords” (Arons, 2004; Campos & Studart, 2008). Considering these facts, it is inevitable to ask: Is it a coincidence that the east canal of the SFIWT was constructed in the Cariri, where oligarchy power and control

100 of water resources is stronger in the state of Paraíba and possibly in the whole semiarid region? I don’t believe in coincidence in this case, but it is hard to have a definitive answer or concrete facts to prove that the SFIWT to the Cariri was a political and economic decision with the objective of increasing power and control of water resources by the local oligarchy. Maybe we will never know, but many representatives of rural families interviewed for this research reported experiences where the big landowners of the region control the access to water. As described by a family farmer from Monteiro (Interviewee 07):

There is this big landowner, who has more land than anyone here in Santana [rural neighborhood in the municipality of Monteiro city]. If you go by his river, he will not let you in, you know? There is no public supervision... Even to catch a fish, if you go there, he sends you out, knowing that the river belongs to everyone.

The river, in this case, is the Paraíba river, the biggest in the region and the one receiving water from the SFIWT. The Paraíba river runs through the property of this big landowner and fills his reservoir. Now, after the SFIWT, the Paraíba river has become a perennial river, capable of withstanding periods of droughts. His reservoir has experienced great changes after the SFIWT: it is always full, while the rural population is still looking for solutions to access minimum amounts of water to irrigate no more than 0,5 ha of land for subsistence, as will be explained later in this study. Another evidence to support Premise 2 happened right after the inauguration of the SFIWT, as explains the executive manager of the Executive Agency for Water Management of the State of Paraíba (Aesa) (Interviewee 02).

101 A year ago, the São Francisco Inter-Basin Water Transfer was inaugurated for the pre-test phase. However, during this period we had the worst drought ever registered in this region and the Epitácio Pessoa Dam [a.k.a. Boqueirão] reached its historical quota of 2.9% of its capacity and started to collapse. The Epitácio Pessoa Dam supplies the city of Campina Grande, which has approximately one million inhabitants between fixed and non-fixed population [according to the last census the city of Campina Grande has a population of 355,014 people (IBGE, 2010)]. Then, a kind of urgent diversion had to be done, where two reservoirs were breached to bring water to Campina Grande as soon as possible. Campina Grande, since April 18, 2017, began to receive the waters of transposition. This process of raising the level of Epitácio Pessoa Dam, lasted approximately one year. Today the transposition is interrupted to fix the torn of the other two reservoirs. Due to the rains that occurred in 2018, the Epitácio Pessoa Dam is at 31% of its capacity, achieving the water security that was expected over the last six years.

The breaking of the other two reservoirs, namely Camalaú and Poções, to bring water from the SFIWT to Campina Grande as quick as possible was a controversial decision: first, because the municipalities supplied by these two minor reservoirs were also suffering with water rationing since 2012. Most people from urban and rural zones were depending exclusively on water-trucks and family farmers who lost everything were anxiously waiting for water to revamp their agricultural production. On the other hand, Campina Grande, the biggest city in the region, started water rationing only in 2014 and just during the weekends. The other 18 municipalities which depend on the Epitácio Pessoa Dam suffered a much bigger water rationing, with regular interruptions of water supply for many days and even weeks. So, why did Campina Grande suffer less or almost nothing comparing to other municipalities during the worse drought ever registered in Brazil? According to some interviewees, it is because Campina Grande is where the local oligarchy lives.

102 If compared with the other municipalities considered in this research, Campina Grande has better numbers in virtually all indicators, scoring 0,720 in the Human Development Index, while Monteiro, the better ranked municipality involved in this research, scored only 0,628 (see section 4.2 Physical Structure and Social Capital, p. 107). Campina Grande is also the biggest exporter of commercial goods of the state of

Paraíba, especially rubber footwear and construction stones. Cumulatively, from January to September 2018, the city exported 38.47 million dollars while João Pessoa, the capital of the state, exported 7.06 million dollars (Secretary of Economic Development of Campina Grande, 2018). As the proverb says, “a picture is worth a thousand words” and from the pictures below is it possible to notice the difference in structure and wealth between Campina Grande and Monteiro (the biggest and wealthiest municipality included in this research). The pictures display the downtown of both municipalities from above and were taken by the same photographer in the same year (Fig. 6 – 7).

103

Figure 6: Downtown Campina Grande at night. Picture by Jorge Barbosa (2016)

104

Figure 7: Downtown Monteiro. Picture by Jorge Barbosa (2016)

A family farmer from the rural area of Monteiro (Interviewee 06), who is supplied by the Camalaú reservoir told me during an interview:

So far, nothing changed for us with the diversion [SFIWT] because we have not planted anything yet. You cannot do it without water, right? And now that they have broken the Camalaú reservoir to supply Campina Grande, there is no water for us. While they do not fix it, there is nothing we can do...

All the evidence points to the fact that water accessibility in the Cariri is highly dependent on social capital. In practical terms, it means that water resources are accessed and controlled via social and political relationships. Right now, water resources are concentrated in the hands of big landowners in the top of the social

105 pyramid and mainly used to maintain the status quo and expand political power and economic resources. Lin (2001), in his theory of social capital, called these principals of action to maintain and gain resources “Minimization of loss” and “Maximization of gain”. According to him, both principals of actions are basic human motivations to interact with one another and accumulate social capital. Minimization of loss, in the context of water accessibility and distribution in the Cariri, means that the oligarchy on the top of the social structure, first, acts to protect their water resources in the region. Their social position results from the amount and control of these freshwater resources, and their survival as local elite depends on it. Generally, in this situation, actions are not governed by social norms, rules, or obligations with local population, but on self-interest to maintain and defend their resources, and then, to maximize their utility (Coleman, 1988; Lin, 2001). As in Lin (2001), minimization of loss and maximization of gain are two different functions rather than inverse functions of each other. They form a ranked action set, rather than a dichotomy, where priority is given to maintaining or minimizing loss over maximizing resources. Thus, after having their water resource secure and controlled, actions are taken to maximize them. To do that, the oligarchy uses its own scheme of favors exchange within their select group of big landowners, politicians, and the private sector, configuring a closed group with almost no vertical bonds with lower social-economic classes. Construction of dams, reservoirs, roads, and highways made by DNOCS and other political initiatives across the semiarid region of Brazil served to secure and

106 increase the amount of resources of the local elite and isolate them even more from other social groups. The fallacy of “fighting against drought” (combate à seca) served to legitimize the use of public resources for private gains and expand resources and political influence in the whole semiarid region and, of course, in the Cariri. A scenario of social and economic inequalities favors the development of bonding type of social capital in different social layers (Pelling and High, 2005). As mentioned in the previous section, the elite usually unite to protect and expand their resources and political influence. On the other hand, poor family farmers, or clients of local elites, also invest in their bonding ties to overcome their lack of resources by allowing small farmers to pool and share their resources (Pelling and High, 2005), including water. Thus, bonding social capital of poor family farmers in the Cariri is an attempt to keep scarce resources in, and is associated more with survival than development (Pelling and High, 2005). A good example is the social-territorial organization of poor family farmers in the Cariri, or the sítios (Fig. 8). Sítios are small tracts of lands, generally leased from big landowners, which are occupied by members of the same family or different families bonded by marriage or long-time friendships. In times of drought or economic recession, these poor rural families help each other by sharing their resources equally among their members.

107

When hard times are over, they also share their resources to recover by lending agricultural instruments for farming, human power to plant or harvest, and many other resources only available through social relationships within and between sítios. This is very common practice in the region, according to local interviewees.

To facilitate raising and distribution of resources, it is also very common to have different kinds of local organizations representing sítios and individual rural workers. The representatives of these associations are the focal points for contacting and raising resources with national and international organizations, the private sector, and the government. Therefore, bridging and linking social capital involving poor family farmers are always mediated by representatives of these local organization. The

108 problem is that the members of local associations or NGOs delegate the role of negotiating with government, private sector, and other local organizations to the representative of the organization and do not follow up and participate in meetings. “The president of our neighborhood association is responsible for going to meetings, assimilating the information that was given there and check if there is any resource available for our community”, said a family farmer from Monteiro (Interviewee 06). Another resident from São Domingos do Cariri (Interviewee 28, informal merchant), after saying she participates in a local organization said, “I can’t remember the name of the association, it has something to do with drought…”. In this sense, there is not much social and political engagement in the Cariri. Also, it is difficult to find the number of local organizations active in the Cariri. The website of ASA, the biggest umbrella organization in the region, mentions only three local NGOs, but when displaying an interactive map9 with their actions in the state of Paraíba, the Cariri region is blanked. Also, let’s not forget that interviewees from local NGOs described the difficulties of implementing social programs in the Cariri region and the number of demonstrations in the region were the lowest across Paraíba state. The analysis of historical documents, interviews, survey, and field observation in the Cariri made it clear that the local social structure and, consequently, local social capital are social constructions dating back more than 300 years. It is difficult to imagine that only one year would be enough to cause changes in this social structure, even considering a mega-project like the SFIWT.

9 ASA interactive map can be accessed here: https://www.asaparaiba.org/territorios

109 Qualitative data analysis suggests no significant changes in the social structure of the Cariri, meaning that the ones with less access to water because of low quantity and quality of bridging and especially linking social capital still have the same difficulties as before the SFIWT. Some populations, as displaced communities and riverside farmers, for example, have even less access to freshwater than before. On the other hand, those who historically have control over natural resources still have. Even considering that the SFIWT has not caused any significant changes in the social structure of the Cariri so far, there is still the possibility of finding a more significant impact in the local network (analyzed further on in this dissertation) which, in the long term, could affect the social structure too.

4.2 Physical Structure and Social Capital

This study is concentrated in 8 municipalities of the Cariri region, in the state of Paraíba, Brazil: Boqueirão, Cabaceiras, Camalaú, Caraúbas, Caturité, Congo, Monteiro, and São Domingos do Cariri. According to the last census, in 2010, all eight municipalities had together a total population of 74.073, with a projected number of inhabitants rising to 79.129 by 2017. From the total population, 41% corresponds to rural and 59% to urban population (Tab. 3). However, in the Cariri, being part of the urban or rural population doesn’t necessarily imply a different way of life. Many of the population who live in urbanized areas remain dependent on agricultural activities, as well as continue to integrate the same world of habits and symbology proper to their rurality (Wanderley, 2009; da Silva, 2013). Monteiro is the biggest municipality (33.294 inhabitants), followed by Boqueirão (17.842). The other six cities are much smaller with populations below

6020 inhabitants and no more than 28.000 altogether (Tab. 4). According to the

110 Human Development Atlas of Brazil (HDI, 2013), which is based on education, longevity, and income indicators, the municipality with the higher human development index (HDI) is also Monteiro, with 0,628, placing this municipality in the range of Medium Human Development10 (HDI between 0.600 and 0.699) together with Boqueirão, Caturité and Cabaceiras.

Table 4: Rural, Urban, and Total Population. Data from the Human Development Atlas Brazil

Municipality Rural Urban Total Estimated total for 2017 Boqueirão 4882 (28,9%) 12.006 (71,1%) 16.888 (100%) 17.842 Cabaceiras 2819 (56%) 2.216 (44%) 5.035 (100%) 5.570 Camalaú 2862 (49,8%) 2.887 (50,2%) 5.749 (100%) 6.020 Caraúbas 2382 (61,1%) 1.517 (38,9%) 3.899 (100%) 4.174 Caturité 3520 (77,5%) 1.023 (22,5%) 4.543 (100%) 4.839 Congo 1745 (47,3%) 2.942 (62,7%) 4.687 (100%) 4.789 Monteiro 10.591 20.261 (65,7%) 30.852 (100%) 33.294 (43,3%) São Domingos 1.385 (57,3%) 1.035 (42,7%) 2.420 2.601 do Cariri Total 30.186 (41%) 43.887 (59%) 74.073 (100%) 79.129

Camalaú is the municipality with the lowest HDI (0,567), which places this municipality in the range of Low Human Development (HDI between 0.500 and 0.599) followed by Congo (0,581), Caraúbas (0,585), and São Domingos do Cariri

10 Human Development Atlas Brazil (HDI, 2013). Retrieved from: http://www.atlasbrasil.org.br/2013/pt/perfil/

111 (0,589), respectively (Tab. 5). Regarding economic inequality, measured by the Gini Coefficient – where 0 is perfect equality and 1 is total inequality - Monteiro presents the highest economic inequality (0,57), while Caraúbas is the municipality with less economic inequality (0,45). If only considering the participants of the survey, Caraúbas is also the municipality with the highest mean for household income and

Congo the lowest. However, all municipalities have income rates below the national mean (IBGE, 2010).

Table 5: Number of nonprofit organizations, Human Development Index, and Gini Index per municipality

Municipality Number of Human Gini Index Non-profit Development organizations11 Index (HDI) Boqueirão 103 0,607 0,46 Cabaceiras 46 0,611 0,46 Camalaú 27 0,567 0,46 Caraúbas 33 0,585 0,45 Caturité 35 0,623 0,56 Congo 29 0,581 0,49 Monteiro 205 0,628 0,57 São Domingos do 4 0,589 0,47 Cariri Total 482

The level of education in all municipalities is low. Even though they all present literacy rates above 96%, the number of people above 18 years old who completed

11 IBGE 2018. Retrieved from: https://cidades.ibge.gov.br/

112 high school is very low (Fig. 9). Monteiro is the municipality with the highest rate of people above 18 years old who completed high school, with 44,05%, and the lowest is Camalaú with only 19,73% (PNUD and IPEA, 2013; IBGE, 2017).

Figure 9: Percentage of population above 18 years old who completed high school

In terms of physical infrastructure, the urbanized area of all eight municipalities is small, composed mostly of houses and small commercial establishments (Fig. 10). The public administration headquarters are generally located in front of a square, which do not provide much leisure options for the inhabitants but serve as places where local populations can gather, especially retired people during mornings and afternoons, and adolescents and young adults at night. The streets in urban centers are mostly stone-paved and the roads connecting most of the

113 municipalities are well paved, signalized, and safe to drive during the day. At night, road lighting and signaling get impaired and it is riskier to drive, but totally doable.

Figure 10: Overview of the municipality of Boqueirão, population 17.842

According to the national census (IBGE, 2017), the great majority of homes have electricity and garbage collection, with numbers above 95% for both in all municipalities. However, the numbers of homes with piped water are not satisfactory, with some municipalities, such as Caturité, with less than 50% of total households with piped water (Fig. 11). When it comes to basic sanitation, the numbers are even lower, with only Monteiro and Boqueirão having above 50% of its total population with adequate sanitary sewage (IBGE, 2017). It is worth mentioning that this numbers are from 2010, seven years before the conclusion of the SFIWT. However, field

114 observation and interviews showed that this number did not suffer many changes since then, especially in the rural area, where most of the interviewees didn’t have piped water or sewage in their homes or in the entire neighborhood. The results of the survey applied for this dissertation showed a slightly different scenario. From the total sampled population, 53% answered “yes” - they have sewage - against 45% who answered “no” and 2% who didn’t answer. These numbers are a little higher than expected if considering the government official data (Fig. 11). If selecting only the sampled population who works with agriculture, the number of households with no piped water rises to 60%, showing a significant difference in water infrastructure between rural and urban population of the sample.

Figure 11: Percentage of residences with piped water and basic sanitation. Data retrieved from the last census in Brazil, 2010, by IBGE

115 Tourism and social capital Still regarding water-services, the Paraíba river is now a perennial river due to the SFIWT and its riverside has become a touristic attraction. As river water flows, the resident population started to gather along the riverbank, fishing, playing, eating, drinking, and listening to music (Fig. 12). Before the Paraíba river became perennial, gatherings on the riverbank were restricted to the peak of the rainy season, no more than a month in the Cariri. Now, the riverbank has become a tourist attraction throughout the whole year, especially during the weekends, as reported by a municipal health worker of the municipality of Boqueirão (Interviewee 16, health worker, Boqueirão):

Tourism here in Boqueirão increased with the diversion [SFIWT]. Before, who wanted to see a dry reservoir? No one! So, today, the municipality receives several people, mainly on Sundays. There is traffic near by our reservoir because of the waters from the transposition. The city is making more money. For example, during the weekends, as I told you, our municipality is always crowded. The restaurants are filled with people who come here to see the water, to see the water from the San Francisco River here in the municipality of Boqueirão.

116

Figure 12: Music, food, and drinks by the riverside of Paraíba River, Caraúbas-PB. Friday morning of a rainy day. Most people came by motorcycle. The black pick-up truck belongs to the owner of the commercial establishment in the left

Boqueirão wasn’t the only municipality to increase tourism in the riverside of Paraíba River because of the SFIWT. Even though there is no official data about local tourism, during the field work I could verify that Monteiro, Caraúbas, and São

Domingos do Cariri are receiving a great number of local tourists looking for riverside fun in the Paraíba river too. The only official record that indicates the SFIWT is causing impacts on local tourism is that the municipalities of Boqueirão, Cabaceiras, Camalaú, Congo and Caraúbas are now included in the Nacional Map of Tourism in the categories E and D.

It means these municipalities are considered “destinations that do not have expressive

117 national and international tourist flow, however some have an important role in the regional tourist flow and need support for the generation and formalization of jobs and lodging establishments”12 (Ministry of Tourism, 2018). The implications of new hotspots of tourism along the Paraíba River to local social capital is not clear. So far, none of the municipalities presented a development plan to explore tourism in the region. The literature on tourism and social capital in Brazil is very scarce and practically inexistent regarding the semiarid region of Brazil. However, international experiments, like in Malaysia for example, reveal that tourism in the island is an experience that increases bridging social capital by creating and strengthening social relationships among people from different ethnic or cultural background (Mura & Tavakoli, 2014). In Norway, a study showed that touristic places are locally understood as spaces for bonding with significant others and social integration in everyday life (Heimtun, 2007). During field observations in the riverbanks of the Paraíba river, I noticed that this new touristic attraction does not promote relationships among people from different social, economic, or cultural backgrounds, as in Malaysia. Rather, most local tourists were from different municipalities but, apparently, from the same social layer. They listen to the same music, dress and talk in very similar ways, eat the same food and drink the same drinks. Most often have the same kind of cars and especially motorcycles. Therefore, the riverside of the Paraíba river seems more a public space to strengthening social bonds within family and significant others, as in Norway. A place

12 Official Website of the Ministry of Tourism of Brazil. Retrieved from http://www.turismo.gov.br/assuntos/8150-novo-mapa-do-turismo-da- para%C3%ADba-tem-acr%C3%A9scimo-de-59-munic%C3%ADpios.html

118 for bonding social capital. Literature on social capital and local infrastructure also suggests that new touristic attractions have the potential to increase bonding social capital, based in the premise that the greater the availability of venues for public meetings, the greater the possibility of increasing bonding social capital (World Bank, 2004; Costa et al., 2008; Rutten et al., 2010).

However, with tourism increasing in the region without investments nor planning, conflicts also increase, and infrastructure problems become more evident. In Caraúbas and São Domingos do Cariri, the owners of commercial establishments perceived an increment of small conflicts, like fights because of loud music, parking, inconvenient drunk people, drugs, and disturbance of peace. Those numbers don’t appear in the official statistics of crime and violence because there are no formal charges against anyone, as explained to me a local police officer during an informal conversation. These small conflicts are dealt with locally, with no need for police intervention. However, in general, owners of commercial establishments said the SFIWT was a “blessing” (very common word to describe the impact of the SFIWT in the region) because it is attracting more people to their municipalities and boosting their sales.

Flooded roads and social capital In terms of infrastructure, the most negative impact of the SFIWT reported by local residents are permanent flooded roads. The same river that might be contributing to local bonding social capital through tourism, is negatively impacting bonding social capital through accessibility. This because, with the perenization of the Paraíba river, many roads connecting rural and urban centers were permanently flooded. Before the

119 SFIWT, these roads used to get flooded only during the peak of the rainy season, no more than a month. Generally, even then, it was possible to drive through these “wet passages” for most of the days, and it was never considered a problem. Mostly important, the rainy season did not represent an impediment to family farmers to ship their products to be sold in regional markets.

However, after the SFIWT, some rural areas became permanently isolated, as reported one of the interviewees from São Domingos do Cariri:

Today, the main problem related to the diversion of the São Francisco river is rural mobility to access services in the urban area. As you can see (Fig. 13), we are in the middle of a road that should connect our municipality to Santa Cruz do Capibaribe, in the state of Pernambuco. The rural population who lives there, in the other side of the river, are now isolated from public services like health and education… We must now take a detour of more than 50km to cross the river on the PB-160 (Interstate Highway). (Interviewee 22, state civil servant, São Domingos do Cariri)

120

Figure 13: Wet Passage in São Domingos do Cariri - Paraíba River cutting a rural road

Members of the Caravan of Water and Agroecology who did their diagnostic in the municipality of São Domingos do Cariri also identified isolation of rural communities as one of the main negative impacts of the SFIWT13. In the rural area of

13 Part of the results of the Caravan of Water and Agroecology, including regarding rural mobility, was posted in the website of AS-PTA (Family Agriculture and Agroecology Association), retrieved in August 2018 from: http://aspta.org.br/2018/04/caravana-das-aguas-e-da-agroecologia-propoe-acoes-em- beneficio-das-populacoes-ribeirinhas-da-transposicao-do-rio-sao-francisco-na-paraiba/

121 Monteiro, a resident also identified rural mobility as one of the main negative impacts of the SFIWT:

One of the most negative impacts of the diversion is that we cannot pass to the other side of our own neighborhood. The water is cutting this little passage here and making it difficult to go to the other side. Because of that, many people stopped seeing their relatives in the other side of the neighborhood (…) Also, because of these difficulties to pass to the other side, we do not participate in meetings of our neighborhood association anymore. Now, one designated person attends the meetings, assimilate the information and share with us what he learnt. This guy is also responsible to take our payment every month to the association, so it can represent us in case of emergency or urgency. (Interviewee 07, Student at the UFCG, Monteiro rural area)

After giving this interview, he tried to pass through the river with his motorcycle and got stuck. The engine got wet and he had to wait almost 10 minutes for the engine to dry so he could drive again. During fieldtrips to the rural area of Monteiro, Camalaú, and Caraúbas I heard the same story repeatedly and could even experience some difficulties myself. Muddy and sometimes impassible rural roads forced me many times to take long detours and lose precious time. I damaged my car twice passing over rocks and almost drowned my car’s engine trying to avoid a detour of 15 miles from Camalaú to Caraúbas (Fig.

14).

122

Figure 14: Damaged cars passing a now permanent flooded rural road from Camalaú to Caraúbas

The interruption of rural roads has an immediate impact on local bonding social capital. As the literature on social capital and physical spaces shows, physical barriers between uniform and diverse communities act as real and symbolic divides decreasing both bonding and bridging social capital (Schneider, 2017). When talking to residents from urbanized areas, for example, the great majority tell that most of their parents and friends live in sítios in the rural area, but because of flooded roads, visits and meetings are becoming less frequent. Like explained earlier, sítios are a great source of bonding social capital, where family and friends pool their resources together to overcome lack of local infrastructure and public services. During the pilot phase of the survey, for example, I asked local residents of sítios how many friends they have, and the answer was usually

123 50, 60, and even “more than a hundred” friends. The first time I heard that, I thought that the person didn’t understand the question. Then, I repeated the question and explained that friend should be considered a “person you feel at ease with, can talk to about private matters, or call on for help”, as it is written in the questionnaire (Question 1.12). But the answers were the same. Something unconceivable for a person from a megalopolis like me (São Paulo, 17 million inhabitants), who sometimes doesn’t know the name of his or her own neighbor. But in sítios across the Cariri this is absolutely true. Our survey indicates that the mean of friend among the surveyed population is 9.4 friends per person. If considering only people who work in the agriculture sector, the mean increases to 11 friends, but the highest mean of friends per person comes from people who work in indoor informal activities (sewing, private lessons, cooking, handicrafts, etc.) with a mean of 27 friends per person.

Regarding the impact of the SFIWT in the number of friends, our survey shows that 70% of the participants still have the same number of friends, while 23% have more friends than before. Only 3% reported having fewer friends due to the SFIWT. Among people who declared having more friends, 80% work in the agricultural sector. When associating number of friends and participation in local organizations, the survey reveals that 41% of people who participate in at least one local organization have more friends after the SFIWT. It could be indicative that the SFIWT has a greater impact on social capital of people working with agriculture and people who participate actively on local organizations. As the president of a Rural Union stated (Interviewee 13, president of local Rural Union):

I don’t think more people are participating in our Rural Union [after the SFIWT]. I think the participation of those who were already members

124 has improved. That's what I'm feeling as president. They did not unionize more, but those who were already with us had improved the quality of participation. They participate in more meetings, seek for more information, bring and discuss problems related to the diversion [SFIWT].

Another interviewee, a municipal tax attorney who is also the president of a local cultural association perceived that after the SFIWT, “people are showing more willingness to participate in our association, but we do not have more members because of the SFIWT” (Interviewee 14, municipal tax attorney). With data from the interviews and the survey pointing to different directions, the impact of flooded roads due to the SFIWT on the social capital of the Cariri is inconclusive. On one hand, people externalize that flooded rural roads are one of the greatest problems caused by the SFIWT and gave practical examples of how it decreases their participation in civic events, local organizations, and even family activities. On the other hand, 23% of people declared having more friends after the SFIWT and local organization managers perceive that their members are more active and participative. One hypothesis is that flooded rural roads and all other new problems due to the SFIWT are making people more active in their local organization in an attempt to solve these problems. As we saw through various examples, the population from the Cariri do not protest openly, but they participate in local organization who represent their interest to local authorities. So, at the same time flooded roads are limiting their bonding social capital within family and friends, it is increasing the quality of their participation in local organization to increase pressure on the local government to solve this problem. As stated by the municipal tax attorney of São Domingos do Cariri (Interviewee 14):

125 Since the inauguration of the diversion [SFIWT], there were some demonstrations across the Cariri, including here in the City Council of São Domingos de Cariri, to develop projects to take rural communities out of isolation due to the diversion of the São Francisco River.

4.3 Characteristics of Sampled Population From a total of 400 printed and distributed surveys, volunteers could apply and return to me 213 completed surveys, a response rate of 53%. All surveys were answered by individuals living in the municipalities of Boqueirão, Caturité, Cabaceiras, São Domingos do Cariri, Caraúbas, Congo, Camalaú and Monteiro, which include rural and small urban centers (Tab. 6). The sample population is all adults, from 18 to 94 years old, and an average age of 42 years old. The participants were 55% females, 43% males and the other 2% didn’t answer. Most have not completed high school (55%), a few are illiterate (5%) and 13% have undergraduate or graduate courses. According to HDI (2013), all eight municipalities have income and educational levels below average if comparing to the state of Paraíba and national HDI averages.

Table 6: Distribution of sampled population across municipalities

Municipality Count Percentage Boqueirão 18 8% Cabaceiras 29 14% Camalaú 24 11% Caraúbas 40 19% Caturite 22 10% Congo 5 2% Monteiro 45 21% São Domingos 30 14% Total 213 100%

126 The great majority works with agriculture (51%), followed by public agents (21%). The reminder (28%) works in different sectors (i.e. civil construction, informal activities, commerce, transportation, tourism, etc.), and just a few (7%) do not work. The average mean for number of people per household is 4.5, with families varying from 1 to 8 members. Monthly wage per household is low, with the great majority

(63%) receiving the minimum wage14 or less per household. Only 5% answered they have a monthly income per household greater than three minimum wage. This data is consistent with the last national census on family size. According to the IBGE (2010), families in Brazil had, on average, 3.3 members, while “the Northeast [where the Cariri region is located] and North of Brazil, where the average family size is 4 or more people, have the lowest family income: about 60% and 70% of the national average, respectively”15. Also, the great majority of respondents have been living in the same community for more than 10 years (68%), just a few between 5 and 10 years (8%) and the reminder (23%) from 1 to 5 years in the same community. Data analysis from the survey shows a significant negative relation between years living in the same community and both participation in local organizations and voluntary work in the community after the SFWIT. Thus, as years living in the same community goes up, participation in local organization and voluntary work in the community go down. It is not clear why this is happening, since interviews and field observations data didn’t capture more details

14 By the time this research was made, the minimum wage in Brazil was R$937,00, what is equivalent to U$235 at that time.

15 IBGE official webpage. Census 2010

127 regarding the relation between willing to work as a volunteer and years living in the Cariri. Considering only those who actively participate in at least one local organization, only 35,5% are people living more than 10 years in the same community. In terms of voluntary work after the SFWIT, people living for more than

10 years in the same community represents only 26% of active volunteers in the community. In summary, the numbers of the survey show a gender balanced sampled population, where most respondents are poor farmers, around 40 years old, who didn’t complete high school (32% didn’t even complete basic school) and who have been living for more than 10 years in the Cariri. This description of the sampled population is congruent with what I found during the pilot test for the survey, which took place in the rural area of Boqueirão, Caturité and Caraúbas. For the pilot test, I randomly entered rural roads and stopped by some sítios. As soon as I turned off the car, often someone would come out and talk to me. Generally, a man or woman around 40-50 years old, who was working at home (i.e. cooking, cleaning) or in small plantations nearby their house. I felt very welcome. They were friendly and took their time to answer the survey. Some would even invite me to their homes and offer something to eat or drink, even when I was trespassing. Without noticing, in some occasions I drove by and stopped my car inside private properties, but nobody questioned me because of that. On contrary, they would approach very carefully, say hello, and start a conversation. As observed by a professor from the UFCG when I mentioned this fact to him during an interview (Interviewee 01):

128 The relationship between rich and poor rural populations is almost a relationship of lord and slave. As you witnessed, you enter their properties, their home, and you do not even have to knock, you just enter. He thinks you are rich, so you can do whatever you want. Imagine, if someone enters your house without clapping or being announced, you put him out with a broomstick, don’t you? How come a person gets into your house like this? But here is different, they do not stop you or anything because they think you're rich, so, they are rather afraid of you or think you have something for them...

This is another example of how the local historical process of land occupation influence the relationship among different local actors until these days, directly impacting local social capital. A person perceived as being rich, in this case me, has easier access to local social capital, here represented by people who could answer my pilot survey. Imagine the opposite: A poor rural person getting into a rich condominium or big rural property asking if the landlord could answer a questionnaire with more than 50 questions. He or she would never make it to the main house or get to speak to the owner of the property. I remember passing by some rich condominiums in Campina Grande, where the local oligarchy lives, and seeing private security guards with machine guns in high security cabins. I confess I was surprised by that vision, which seemed to me a little disproportional considering the levels of violence in the region. But, there were some other vulnerabilities as well. As mentioned before, the local educational level is low and most of the participants of the pilot survey had difficulties in understanding some of the questions. The state of Paraíba presents the third highest rate of illiteracy in Brazil (IBGE, 2017) and all the municipalities of the Cariri region have educational levels below the state rate (HDI, 2013). Even people who could read and write, sometimes, during the survey presented difficulties to understand more complex questions. Noticing that, I tried to make the language as

129 simple as possible and socially appropriate for the final version of the survey. Even so, some volunteers reported back that they had to explain some of the questions to obtain answers. Another interesting characteristic showed by the sampled population during the survey is that most participants spontaneously talked about some topics related to the questions and even justified their answers. They used to interrupt the survey to give their opinion on the SFIWT or to share some memories of how the region was different when they were kids, for example. The survey was planned to take about 15 minutes but, generally, took around 30. Some volunteers who applied the survey reported back that applying the survey helped them connect and better understand their community. In this sense, the survey was a kind of a communication tool, serving also the purpose of bringing up some important local topics that needed to be discussed among the community. For example, some volunteers told me that they were surprised by the low number of people participating in local NGOs in one region. Others had positive political discussions and even learned new local historical facts during the application of the survey. In terms of access to water, half of the sampled population (52%) responded that their household is directly benefitted by the SFIWT, while the other half (48%) understand that their household is not benefitted by the SFIWT. Before the SFIWT, only 35 % of the total sampled population had piped water. The reminder relied, most of the time, on cisterns (29%), water-trucks (17%), artesian-wells (15%), and water collected directly from the river (3%). Also, before the SFIWT, 30% of the sample said they used mixed methods to access and store water, being the most common the combination of cisterns and water-trucks.

130 After the SFIWT, there was a completely different scenario. People who answered they have piped water at their household more than doubled (71%), including all participants (100%) from the municipalities of Boqueirão, Cabaceiras, and Congo. This was surprising, since I have been to all those municipalities and most of the people I had contact with, especially from the rural area, had no piped water.

One possible explanation is the fact that the survey in these three municipalities was concentrated in the urban area, since more than 90% of the sampled population from these municipalities are from the urban center. If only considering people who work in the agriculture sector, the number of households with piped water drop considerably to 18%, while more than 50% depend on cisterns and 17% on water-trucks. This data confirms that the SFIWT was made to bring water to urban centers, and not to rural households nor agricultural production, as explained the executive manager of monitoring and hydrometric of Aesa (Interviewee 02):

At first, the diversion [SFIWT] was done only to supply cities... Moreover, truth must be told, water is not sufficient in quantity. Farmers who want to generate income by increasing agricultural production want to take water from the river, but we do not have enough water for this... The project was not designed for improving agriculture.

Moreover, from the total sample, 78% said they have already passed periods of drought where the water supply was interrupted. At the same time, 89% declared that they have access to water-services and 53% to sewer services. These numbers are high and even above the national rate of 83,3% for water-services and 50,3% for sewer (Tomé, 2017). Another possible explanation is that, first, this survey was made during the rainy season, when people usually have more access to water. Second, because

131 cisterns, water-trucks, and wells are considered locally as “having access to water- services”, since for many, it is the only access to water they have ever known.

Most vulnerable population From the total sampled population, 11% declared not having access to water- services. During field observations and interviews, I could notice that families who didn’t have access to water-services were also the poorest and the excluded. These are mostly poor family farmers living along the East canal and the Paraíba river and who lost their direct access to water. They used to rely on the river during the rainy season and on local artesian wells during the dry season. However, the excavation of the East Canal drained all underground water around into the canal, leaving the local population without any source of freshwater during the worst drought ever register in the country from 2012 to 2017. This information was confirmed by interviews and field visits to wells in two communities living along the East canal (Sítio Pau D’Arco and Xique-Xique, Monteiro-PB). Similarly, families living along the Paraíba river, which receives water from the East canal, also lost their main source of freshwater. Even though the Paraíba river is now flowing permanently, riverside farmers are restricted by law to use a maximum of 0,5 hectare for agriculture, since the SFIWT was mainly made to supply urban settings. They are in a slightly better condition than the families living along the East canal, since they could keep most of their artesian wells, but the great majority lost more than gained with this new arrangement. As stated by the regional basin manager of Aesa (Interviewee 03):

Aesa [Executive Agency for Water Management of the State of Paraíba] has released to family farmers a restricted quantity of water for irrigation, because we understand that it is complicated for riverside

132 families to see water passing by their backyard and cannot use it to irrigate, which is also a cultural practice. (…) The legal permissions we are giving to riverside families along the Paraíba river is limited to irrigate only 0.5 hectare, and only if these families have use water saving technologies. Still according to him:

Aesa has about 515 registered riverside families. Of those 515, around 150 to 100 families are actually using the 0,5 hectare to irrigate (…). The others, either become unfeasible to them because of the initial cost of implementing the irrigation system or they have no more interest in farming.

It means that 4/5 of family farmers living alongside the Paraíba river lost their access to water. The reminder 1/5 are using water from the SFIWT to irrigate their 0,5 hectare and having unrestricted use at the household level. These families are also learning and implementing water-saving technologies and selling surplus production, which is not much, but differently from the period before the SFIWT, will keep producing during the whole year. The majority, on the other hand, lost not only water, but pretty much everything that comes with it. “I don’t know what else to do”, said a local farmer, who lives with his wife, four kids, and his mother, and who dedicated more than 20 years of his life to agriculture. “The only thing I know is how to work the land, plant, and harvest, but now they don’t let me. It is like I have to start my life all over again, from scratch”. Besides losing their main source of income, their jobs, and for some, their purpose of life, they are also afraid to lose their land. Locally, there is this fear that small farmers along the Paraíba river won’t have condition to pay for the lease or profit from their own lands anymore, being forced to sell their small tract of land for low prices.

133 The president of a local Rural Union (Interviewee 13) expressed this fear and insinuated that this might be a part of a big plan to get rid of small farmers in the region, a mistrust shared by some other farmers and local NGOs leaders:

It is one of my greatest concerns, that this water will have owners. Unfortunately, the population is not noticing yet, but we are feeling that things are going this way: water belonging to some owners. We don’t want the same coronelism we had here centuries ago where the biggest water reservoirs were all private. As we had great droughts, we had great infrastructure projects, which did not solve our problems.

In the media it is possible to find articles about land valuation in the Cariri due to the SFIWT and the interest of big national and multinational companies of buying land from small farmers. The vice-mayor of Camalaú stated to a national economic periodical, on April 2018, that “is just a matter of time until the agribusiness spread throughout the region”16 (Falcão, 2018). The textile industry, very strong in the neighboring state of Pernambuco, is also following up closely the price of land along the Paraíba river, say the rumors. During my time in the Cariri, I frequently heard that some family farmers in Monteiro are already selling their land to textile companies. A rumor I could not verify, but according to Mr. Martinho Almeida, technician at the Monteiro Department of

Agriculture, “the textile industry is very interested in buying these lands, because they need areas with enough water to make the washing of jeans, which could be a very polluting process to local rivers” (Falcão, 2018).

16 Retrieved from: https://www.valor.com.br/brasil/5373559/transposicao-leva-agua-e- valorizacao-fundiaria-paraiba

134 By law, using water from the SFIWT for commercial purposes is forbidden and, so far, there is only one industry in the Cariri which produces dairy products. I visited them and could verify they use desalinators to obtain water and are aware of prohibitions to use water from the SFIWT for production. On the family farmers side, if restrictions to use water for agriculture along the

East Canal and the Paraíba river continue, it is possible that they won’t have other option than to abandon their lands. As a local resident living along the East Canal and mother of three stated (Interviewee 12, household):

I've been living here for four years. It was very good, we had water. We had access to wells and cisterns here... Now, after this diversion [SFIWT], we have water in our doorstep [she lives 200 ft from the East canal], but we do not have access. Then, everything went bad. We're just waiting for God to send water.

Another local resident said they lost 38 wells that were drained into the canal (Interviewee 11, president of a local association for displaced people due to the SFIWT), including the one they used to rely upon for agriculture and household use. This information was corroborated by a hydrology professor at the UFCG, who also agreed that these families are the most vulnerable after the SFIWT.

(…) after the diversion [SFIWT], the communities that remained nearby the river and the canal are the most affected. They are facing a huge problem, because the excavations to construct the canal were very deep and the groundwater was all drained into the canal. So, these communities that used to have access to water, today, no longer have. (Interviewee 05, professor at the UFCG)

The 11% of the total population who declared in the survey not having access to water-services, and who is considered here the most vulnerable population, is

135 unevenly distributed among four municipalities: Caraúbas (25% of the total sampled population in this municipality), Monteiro (15%), São Domingos (7%) and Caturité (4%) and have different characteristics from the sample population (Tab. 7). 70% are women, more than 60% didn’t complete the basic education, the great majority lives in a household with more than 4 family members, and 90% work with agriculture.

Table 7: Comparison between characteristics of the total sampled population and population without access to water-services

Variables Population with no access Total sampled population to water-services Gender 70% female – 30% male 56% female – 42% male

Education 60% didn’t complete the 38% didn’t complete the basic education basic education

Occupation 90% work with agriculture 51% work with agriculture

Number of people per 4,5 (mean) 3,7 (mean) household Benefitted by the SFIWT 35% yes – 65% no 52% yes – 48% no

Believes the SFIWT is the 35% yes – 65% no 49% no – 51% yes definite solution

Also, 65% declared that their household is not benefitted by the SFIWT, while among the total sampled population this number represents 48% of the households. Also, differently from the total sampled population where the majority (51%) believes the SFIWT is the definite solution for local water problems, just 35% of people from this group share the same hope.

136 One of the hypotheses of this study, considering the historical process and social dynamics of the Cariri region, is that the population already excluded from access to safe-water will remain excluded after the SFIWT. So far, many evidences found during the document analysis and field research seems to confirm this hypothesis.

Access to water in the Cariri after the SFIWT Besides benefitting some and ruining the access to water for others, all data collected indicates the SFIWT is not making any difference in the life of most residents of the Cariri regarding access to water. At a first glance, it was hard to identify this null outcome of the SFIWT. This is because, during most interviews and informal conversations, people used to say that the SFIWT was very beneficial for them and for the community. After just a little investigation about how exactly the SFIWT was benefitting them, it became clear that, in practice, it wasn’t making any difference in their lives. They were not having access to this new source of freshwater nor having any local water infrastructure enhanced. According to the official tracking of water-trucks in the region, only a few families in the municipalities of Cabaceiras and São João do Cariri are getting water from a reservoir supplied by the SFIWT - the Camalaú reservoir (Querino et al., 2017). Some other urban households with piped water in the municipality of Boqueirão are also being benefitted through the Epitácio Pessoa reservoir, which is also connected to the SFIWT. Too little for the federal investment that was made and for the number of inhabitants of the driest region of Brazil. As an example, I quote a health worker from Caturité (Interviewee 21), who started our interview by saying:

137 (…) there is no negative side about the diversion of the São Francisco river, only positive. The joy of people is something we cannot describe how great it is. However, when asked how the SFIWT was benefitting her household, she answered:

(…) Here, not only my house but the whole neighborhood, is supplied by water-trucks, because we do not have piped water. But, even so, we are very pleased because knowing that the water is there, it will come… Somehow it will come... So, we are just thankful.

I could quote many other interviews where people said wonders about the SFIWT, but don’t have any concrete benefit from it at all. Maybe, it could be the expression of their happiness to see a permanent source of water so close by their homes, or astonishment by the size and scale of this megaproject. As interviewer and observer, I could feel they were genuinely happy about it. A sense of hope, like if it was possible to leave behind a life of struggle and misery within the reach of their hands. The widespread feeling of joy when talking about the SFIWT gives the impression that it is benefitting the whole Cariri, when, actually, vulnerable households benefitted by it are the great minority. When I asked why they said that the SFIWT was good for them and for the whole community, the answers were about dreams, hope, and happiness. “My father used to say that it would come one day, and now it is here”, said one health worker from Caturité (Interviewee 20). Unfortunately, his father couldn’t see it materialized. “Because it was our dream”, answered the president of a local association (Interviewee 15). Others would refer to local market, tourism, and the joy of other people being benefitted by the SFIWT, while their own life stills the same.

138 The survey shows an increment of 38% of people with access to piped-water after the SFIWT, a significant structural improvement. On the other hand, it means that 62% of the total sampled population still don’t have piped-water, and the odds are not in their favor, since the state of Paraíba doesn’t have an official schedule to implement a plumbing system. Unofficially, the story is that the state of Paraíba doesn’t have enough economic resources to install plumbing in the area of influence of the SFIWT, even though it was part of the deal with the federal government. The deal was that the federal government was responsible for the construction of the SFIWT, while the states were responsible to provide adequate infrastructure to store and distribute its waters locally. Either way, the local population still don’t know when or even if they are going to be benefitted from this new source of freshwater one day. Regarding the quality of the water, the Department of Hydrology of the UFCG tested samples along the East canal and the Paraíba river, concluding that:

Considering the physical, bacteriological, and chemical aspects, it is a good water. However, when this water is poured into the Paraíba river, in its way to the local reservoirs, it gets sewer from different municipalities without any treatment. This water, then, gets loaded with pollutants from sewage. As the flow of water in the canal is fixed, it has a dilution power, but does not dilute everything. Even so, it still has a better quality than before. (Interviewee 05, professor of hydrology UFCG).

One of the interviewees from Caturité reported a better tasting and more transparent water, attributing this change to the SFIWT:

Before the diversion [SFIWT], water was terrible, you couldn’t drink it. Now it is drinkable. It is notorious, you put water in the glass and you can see that the transparency of the water. It is very different from before. It is wonderful! (Interviewee 20, health worker from Caturité)

139 However, according to the official report of the National Secretary of Civil Defense and Protection, who coordinates the water-trucks in response to drought, the municipality of Caturité is supplied by the Saulo Maia reservoir, in the municipality of Areia, more than 50 miles from the Cariri and not supplied by the SFWIT. A good reminder that the perception of those in favor and against the SFIWT do not hold water. It always bears scrutiny and triangulation with other information to distinguish the real impact of the SFIWT and the perception of the local population of the impact.

4.4 Groups and Social Network Besides changes in water quantity, quality, and accessibility in the Cariri, this research primarily focuses on how the local population is reorganizing themselves around this mega-infrastructure, and the possible consequences for local social capital and their capacity to cope with drought. The first variable to be analyzed in this regard is Groups and Social Networks. Groups and Social Network is the very essence of social capital, describing the quantity and quality of local relationships and the resources that can be tapped to reach individual and community goals. It encompasses people’s participation in social organizations and informal networks (Grootaert et al., 2004; Aldrich & Meyer, 2015) and the spatial dimension of the social capital, where people meet and create bonds (Foster, 2015). As in Grootaert et al. (2004, p.10) “membership in local associations and networks is clearly an input indicator because the associations and networks are the vehicles through which social capital can be accumulated”. Social capital is an extremely valuable resource but requires action in order to access and use those resources (Knight, 2017). Connections must be established,

140 constructed, and nurtured. Participation in formal and informal groups, virtual or real, must be frequent. It is a constant effort which demands mental, emotional, and physical work. Not by surprise, groups and networks are for Putnam (2000) and his followers an indicator of social health. The quantity and quality of these formal and informal groups can reveal how society is structured and, most important for this study, how resources are shared and used to increase local capacity to cope with disasters. Consistently with data from interviews, field observation, and document analysis, the number of people who don’t participate in any kind of local organization in the Cariri (54%) is greater than the number of people who participates in at least one local organization (46%), with women (53%) slightly participating more than men (45%) (Fig. 15).

141 2,50%

14%

54% 33,50%

No participation 1 group 2 to 4 groups 4 to 6 groups

Figure 15: Participation in local formal and informal groups

From the group of people who participates in at least one local organization, 67% have active participation in only one group, 28% between 2 and 4 groups, and 5% between 4 and 6 groups. Most of these groups are identified as associations (68%), followed by churches (9%) and Rural Unions (7%). The reminder (15%) are scattered among different groups, such as municipal councils and cooperatives. Proportionally,

Monteiro is the municipality with more people engaged in local organizations (42%), while Cabaceiras is the last (1%). The great majority of these organizations are locally based association focused on including their members as beneficiaries of public policies or agricultural private goods distributed by the private sector, such as free samples of seeds or tools for agriculture. As explained by a family farmer from Monteiro (Interviewee 06):

142 Our association seeks to promote improvements to rural producer such as loans and, in the case of drought, benefits from the government. For example, when the municipality was giving palm rackets [resistant to drought] the association went to bring these benefits to us and some other inputs such as corn and cotton. It always seeks to acquire those benefits that the government is giving to us.

The results of the survey confirm the information above, showing that the main benefit of joining these variety of organizations in the Cariri comes from benefiting the whole community (70%), improvements in household’s current livelihood or access to services (15%), spiritual benefits (5%), and advantages during emergency situations (5%). These local organizations also help households get access to one or more local services such as Education or Training (64%), Water Supply or Sanitation (63%), and Credits or Savings (62%), but not as much to Health Services (23%), Agricultural Input or Technology (27%), and Irrigation (11%). It worth mentioning here that these local level organizations are not professionally staffed and, even though they promote regular meetings, they are usually held with only board members who make decisions in the name of the associate members. Most of these associate members agree that their organization is composed mostly of people with the same occupation (70%), from the same neighborhood (57%), and same social-economic conditions (57%), indicating that these grass roots associations are focal points of bonding social capital, where resources are available and shared among members of similar demographic and socioeconomic backgrounds. Also, about half are from the same religion (52%) and belong to the same family (53%). From the point of view of the associate member, their organizations are highly heterogenic regarding age, education level, and political views among members, since

143 93% answered that members are from different ages, 85% different education levels, and 80% different political views. Regarding the impact of the SFIWT in membership of local organizations, almost half of the sampled population (49%) believes that, after the SFIWT, the number of members in their organization are still the same, while 43% understands that the organization has more members now than before the SFIWT. Multiple interviewees who occupy managerial positions at local NGOs, cooperatives, churches, and the public sector stated that their organizations don’t have more members after or due to the SFIWT, contradicting the perception of the surveyed population. Some even showed me the number of associates or staff before and after the SFIWT to confirm their statement. However, most of them agree that their members are more engaged in their organization after the SFIWT, which could be indicative of social capital creation

(bonding, bridging, and linking social capitals). Data from another section of the survey, Collective Action and Cooperation, corroborates with their perception, revealing that 68% of the sampled population agree they became more engaged in important issues for their community after the SFIWT, as it will be analyzed further on in the section dedicated to Collective Actions and Cooperation (4.6). About their own participation, the majority (62%) don’t participate in more groups after the SFIWT, against 33% who increased their participation in local organizations and 2% who diminished their membership in local organizations. The reminder (3%), didn’t answer. This increase in participation was perceived by local NGO managers and members of the public sector who agreed that members “participate in more meeting, seeks for more information, and share more problems too” (Interviewee 13, president of Rural Union). The president of the local

144 Development Council of Monteiro explained that associate members participate more in meetings when access and distribution of resources are in the meeting schedule. In her point of view, the SFIWT is bringing more resources to the region and members became more active to have their share of these resources. Unfortunately, I didn’t have access to the minutes of the meetings nor the attendance list of local organizations to have a third source of information to confirm this change in quality of participation. When asked about interaction with other local organizations, the great majority (70%) agrees that their group used to interact with other organizations occasionally or frequently. After the SFIWT, most members of local organizations perceive that these interactions stayed the same (43%), while for some (37%) their group interacts more with other groups, and for the minority (8%) interactions among groups with the same objective has decreased. This growth in interaction with other groups was perceived by many local NGO leaders, as expressed by the president of a local Rural Union (Interviewee 13).

From the part of our Rural Union there was a significant change after the waters arrived. We have become highly sought-after, especially by outside organizations like research entities, environmental organizations, and members of other local association too.

The interaction with local and foreign organizations with different objectives and member composition could potentially increase local bridging social capital. The implications of these new connections due to the SFIWT can be very beneficial for local rural and urban development, and for drought relief efforts, as stated by the president of a local Rural Union:

145 Recently, members of another local organization called CASACO made a project with the Itaú bank to train and distribute desalinators for people with no access to waters from the SFIWT here in the Cariri. These solar desalinators can produce 150 liters of clean water per day and should serve the most vulnerable families. The training and distribution were made in our Rural Union facilities because we have a big space for training and storing the desalinators.

As in Cai (2017), improving local bridging social capital, especially in financially disadvantaged communities, is a huge challenge, but an extremely important one. This is because bonding social capital might operate as a limited safety net to respond to disaster (Cai, 2017), such as individual assistance to provide water during droughts for family members and neighbors in the Cariri. On the other hand, both bridging and linking social capital often play a more significant role in eliminating vulnerabilities and offering pathways to longer term community revitalization (Cai, 2017; Hawkins & Maurer, 2010). For example, when it comes to drought relief assistance, before the SFIWT, most of the sampled population (32%) used to rely more on politicians and public assistance to have access to water (linking social capital), followed by family (29%) and local organizations (27%), respectively bonding and bridging social capital. After the SFIWT, there was a slight change on every variable, but only one statistically significant if considering our margin of error (7%). In this new configuration, after the SFIWT, people are relying less on family (bonding social capital) and politicians/public assistance (linking social capital) and much more on “Others” (Fig. 16).

146 40

30 32 29 25 26 20 23 20 20 15 17

5 8 6 4 4 3 4 3 0 Family Friends Neighbor Politicians and Local Others Didn't answer -5 Public Organizations Assistance

Before the SFIWT After the SFIWT

Figure 16: Who do you rely to have access to water during drought before and after the SFIWT

In the space designated to explain what “Others” means, the great majority of people indicated that, after the SFIWT, they won’t have to rely on family, politicians, or local organizations anymore to have access to water, since they believe the SFIWT is going to solve once and for all their water related problems. In other words, there is hope water will cease to be dependent on social capital to become a public or private service accessible through economic capital. This indicator reflects the hope people have in the SFIWT as the final solutions for water availability in the Cariri.

147 4.5 Trust and Solidarity This section examines two different dimensions of trust: trust in members of the community and trust in government. Trust is the confidence people have in working together and investing in collective activities knowing that others will also do so (Pretty, 2003). It facilitates cooperative arrangements, decreased local conflicts (Ostrom, 2000; Pretty, 2003), and reduces the transaction costs of social relationships, since less money and time are spent monitoring how individuals use collective resources (Durston, 1999; Pretty, 2003). Results from previous research suggest that communities with higher levels of both trust and civic association respond more effectively and recover faster from disruptive events like disasters (Aldrich, 2012; Field, 2017). In the Cariri, civic association is low as demonstrated in previous sections of this chapter. There is a low number of local organizations, poor participation, and the lowest number of demonstrations in the whole state of Paraíba. Regarding trust, the survey also shows that, before the SFIWT, most sampled population had the opinion that members of the community could not be trusted (60%). After the SFIWT, levels of trust remained the same for two thirds of the population (66%), while it improved for the reminding one third (34%). No one answered that levels of trust have gotten worse due to the SFWIT, indicating that the SFIWT had a positive impact on trust between individuals and their communities. It is not clear, though, why the SFIWT increased levels of trust among the local population. These results also reveal that, before the SFIWT, most people didn’t trust their neighbors as much as it would be expected in the Cariri. Generally, places with low levels of economic capital tend to have higher levels of bonding social capital to compensate for the lack of resources (Woolcock, 1998; Cai, 2017). Bonding social

148 capital is facilitated by trust and when it brings mutual benefits for people it is encouraged, giving people more confidence to invest in local cooperative arrangements. In times of crisis or disasters, when people must rely on their immediate neighbors to survive, these social bonds are strengthened and trust and reciprocity reinforced (Aldrich & Meyer, 2015). Reciprocity can be defined as mutual obligation, or as the succinct definition of Putnam (2000, p.20): “I'll do this for you now, in the expectation that you (or perhaps someone else) will return the favor”. In the Cariri, where economic resources are scarce and the great majority of people (78%) have already gone through periods of drought with serious water supply problems, it would be expected to see high levels of bonding social capital based on trust and reciprocity. However, general levels of trust in the Cariri are lower than expected. But why? The answer might lie on whom the population of the Cariri rely on to access water during droughts. Only 4% of the total sampled population answered that they rely on neighbors and 6% on friends. After the SFIWT, these numbers were even lower, with 3% of people still relying on neighbors and 4% on friends. This is because the social-economic level of most people in the Cariri is similar (84% of the families live with less than US$465 monthly per household) and drought affects them evenly. In practical terms, it means that they cannot rely on their communities, because it is very likely that their friends and neighbors won’t have the resources they need to cope with drought as well. Consequently, there is no reciprocity in this matter and levels of trust in the community are low. Not because they mistrust their neighbors and friends in the sense of confidence or suspicion, but simply because they know the resources available in their own communities are not enough to help them. In this sense, bonding social capital does not provide both immediate and long-lasting solutions for their

149 water problems. At the same time, community trust is not shattered because there is no betrayal or break in trust in any sense. The proof is that when resources increase in the community, as water coming from the SFIWT, local levels of trust also increase, signaling that individuals trust that this resource will be shared with them if needed. When community leaders and family farmers were asked to what extent members of the community collaborate with each other to solve local problems, most of them were emphatic saying they can always count on their neighbors. An NGO representative (Interviewee 09) even mention that a member of their community, who is also a water-truck driver, sometimes pass by the community to drop them “a little water”, what configures an illegal practice. Another community leader (Interviewee 30) told me that when someone learn a new technology that could help their neighbors, they always share the information and help each other to implement these new ideas, as for example the construction of cisterns. Another local NGO manager from Monteiro (Interviewee 23), said that after the SFIWT they have been more physically present in the communities living along the East-Canal:

We go to the communities to visit, help, give solidarity, and hear the local population. Now, when the community needs anything, they call us. So, their trust in our organization has certainly increased.

Regarding community’s bridging and linking social capital, it is quite probable that the 4% of neighbors and 6% of friends mentioned in the survey are focal points, or “bridges” to politicians, international organizations, or higher social layers, who can access and distribute resources that are not locally available. This hypothesis, however, would need to be investigated in depth to be confirmed or refuted, since the instruments used for this study do not provide details on why the levels of trust are

150 low and who are the neighbors and friends people in the Cariri rely on to access water during periods of drought. In terms of solidarity, the sampled population agrees totally or partially that most people in their community are willing to help if needed (74%), with no significant change before and after the SFIWT. Only 6% of the sampled population disagree (somewhat or strongly) that their community would mobilize to help them if they need it. The reminder doesn’t agree or disagree (20%). These results confirm that most people see their community as source of individual and social support in times of crisis, but with serious limitations of resources. To have access to water during drought or any kind of water crisis, local communities in the Cariri put their hope and trust on external resources, only available through bridging and especially linking social capital, as explained by a community health agent from Caturité (Interviewee 20).

Here in Caturité, individuals, community leaders, or representatives of local associations come to the city hall to make a request. Some councilmen also include themselves among the population in need to expedite and facilitate the distribution of water in their region. It is joint effort among the city hall and councilmen to facilitate water access and distribution, which then is made by water-trucks.

This testimony is very illustrative. It shows individuals and organizations making requests to the city hall to have water in their households or neighborhoods, and the local councilmen, or the bridge to linking social capital, acting behind the scenes to accelerate water distribution. These political schemes increase the level of trust people of the Cariri have in their municipal and state government to have access to water, who, in the end of the day, end up like local heroes.

151 When it comes to trust in different level of the government, in general, the sampled population showed higher levels of trust in the state government (Fig. 18) and lower levels of trust in the federal government (Fig. 19), the last responsible for the SFIWT. However, there was no significant change in levels of trust at municipal (Fig. 17), state, and federal government before and after the SFIWT. This result indicates that the SFIWT had low impact on levels of trust in different levels of government. Considering the political context of Brazil during the fieldwork, it is worth registering that Brazil was going through one of its worse political crises in its history, when the elected president Dilma Rousseff suffered an impeachment process planned and executed by her vice-president, Michel Temer, who became president in 2016. This coup had a very bad repercussion among the general population and, in July 2017, the federal government had only 5% of approval, the worst in the history of Brazil

(Caram, 2017; IBGE, 2017). This fact explains the higher levels of mistrust in federal government than state and municipal governments.

152

Figure 17: Trust in municipal government

153

Figure 18: Trust in state government

Figure 19: Trust in federal governmen

154 4.6 Collective Action and Cooperation Collective actions and cooperation are an outcome of social capital, possible only if a significant amount of social capital is available in the community (Grootaert, et al., 2004). Collective actions consist primarily of locally organized activities to resolve particular issues that can vary from management of natural resources (Adger, 2003), provision of mutual protection against risk (Ostrom, 2000b), or politically oriented actions to lobby elected officials to provide more services to the community (Grootaert, et al., 2004), among others. The survey reveals that, before the SFIWT, only 42% of the sampled population participated in any voluntary communal activities, against 58% that had never been a volunteer in their communities (Fig. 20). After the SFIWT, there was a reduction of 7% in the number of those volunteering at the local level. However, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the SFIWT had a negative impact in volunteerism for two reasons: First, a reduction of 7% is still within our margin of error, therefore it is not statistically significant. Second, even if this reduction reflects a local trend, we would still have to consider another important variable to analyze this result: time. After all, this research was done after one year of the inauguration of the SFIWT, giving community volunteers a time span of only one year to act in their communities comparing to their entire life before the SFIWT became a reality.

155 Did you participate in any volunteer action in your community before and after the SFIWT? 160 65% 140 58% 120

100 42% 80 35%

0 Yes No

Before the SFIWT After the SFIWT

Figure 20: Comparison between total number of volunteers before and after the SFIWT

As predicted by Putnam (2000), volunteering, philanthropy, and spontaneous helping are strongly predicted by civic engagement, meaning that those who participate in formal and informal organizations are more likely to “give money and time for good causes than those who are socially isolated” (Putnam, 2000, p.117).

Data from the survey on civic engagement, such as participation in at least one local organization, has shown a strong correlation (p>.05) between volunteering and social engagement in the Cariri, with around 68% of people who participate in local organization also participating in local volunteer actions both before and after the SFIWT. Here, it is important to make a distinction between volunteer actions and participation in local organizations. A volunteer doesn’t need to formally belong to

156 any kind of organization, but it necessary implies any kind of action to help neighbors without expecting payment in return. On the other hand, participation in local organization means being active in internal organizational processes like meetings, decision-making processes, coordination of internal events, elections, and other actions that show interest and personal will to collaborate with the development of the organization. It doesn’t necessarily end up in actions to benefit a neighbor or the community. In this sense, a person can be very active and participative in his or her organization without ever being a volunteer. However, in our case, they are. Most people who are active in their organizations are also active in their community as volunteers. In the survey, another question about local cooperation asked if participants would save water in their daily activities, in the case of problems with water supply, for the benefit of the community. The great majority (89%) answered “yes”, just a few answered “no” (6%), and the reminder didn’t know (4%). After the SFIWT, there was a slightly increase of 3% in the number of people who said they would save water in their daily activities for the benefit of the whole community. This increase is not statistically significant but should be monitored for the next years to understand if the SFIWT is contributing to social responsibility with water usage or not. Some interviewees expressed the necessity of educational programs to promote a more conscious and socially responsible water usage, which in their perspectives is not happening, but will get worse with the SFWIT. They are afraid that the idea of a constant supply of water throughout the year will make people have the illusion that they can waste water without any prejudice to the community.

157 Finally, the survey asked if the SFIWT impelled the participants to get more involved with important issues for the development of their own communities and the answer was highly positive. 68% of the sampled population answered that the SFIWT contributed to their involvement in important issues for the whole community, against 17% who answered “no” and 13% that didn’t know. This is one of the most robust results regarding the impact of the SFIWT on local social capital and it is consistent with previous results from the survey regarding participation in local NGOs and from interviews with NGO managers. However, verifiable data such as number of local demonstrations and demonstrators, public petitions at municipal levels, or even voluntary actions at community level are not available from 2017 onwards. As exposed previously, the Cariri is the region in the state of Paraíba with fewer NGOs per person and fewer demonstrations in the whole state.

The number of voluntary actions at the community level before and after the SFWIT is also low, and field observation didn’t contribute to confirm or refute this significant involvement of the sampled population in important issues for the whole community due to the SFIWT. Also, when relating this data with other data from the survey, such as participation in at least one local organization or lack of public services, this population doesn’t show any discrepancy or statistically significant differences to the total sample population.

4.7 Information and Communication Information and Communication are both the structure that allows people to connect and communicate and the information that circulates within the social network. It has been increasingly recognized as important features to social and behavioral transformations (Nie & Erbring, 2000). Information technology (IT)

158 innovations have shown great potential to helping poor communities have a stronger voice in matters affecting their well-being (Grootaert et al., 2004), and promoting a new virtual space for a more informed, engaged, and influential generation (Nie & Erbring, 2000). On the other hand, it is creating an army of socially isolated people glued to smartphone and TV screens, watching from a safe distance the most urgent world problems while participating and expressing their concerns with greatly impersonal posts and likes in social media. For demonstrating capacity of promoting connections or disconnections between people and groups, the impact of IT innovations in how people participate in their communities remains unclear and can vary a lot depending on time and context. In our survey, this category of questions explored the impacts of the SFIWT in how households receive information (Fig.22) and the extent of their access to communication infrastructure, specifically TV, internet, and radio, which are locally the three most important means to access local news and information on public services. The results show that, for the great majority of people, the SFIWT did not affect time they spend listening to radio (65%), watching TV (63%), or accessing the internet (62%). On the other hand, about one third of the sampled population are listening more to radio (30%), watching more TV (29%), and specially using the internet more (35%) (Fig. 21). According to Putnam’s theory of social capital (2000), this could have a negative impact on local bonding social capital, since the more people spend time watching of TVs, listening to radio, and navigating in the internet, the more they lose contact with their social environment (Putnam, 2000; Nie & Erbring, 2002). This school of thought believes social capital is developed and

159 maintained through face to face interactions in neighborhoods and local organizations (Putnam, 2000; Nie & Erbring, 2002; Aldrich & Meyer, 2015; Knight, 2017). However, there have been several scholarly discussions on virtual social networks and social capital which are challenging this point of view.

70% 65% 63% 62% 60%

50%

40% 35% 30% 29% 30%

20%

7% 10% 5% 3% 0% More Less No difference Radio TV Internet

Figure 21: Impact of the SFIWT in how households receive information through TV, Radio, and Internet

Wellman et al. (2001), when analyzing online visitors to the National Geographic Society website, one of the first large-scale web surveys, noticed that heavy internet users are more inclined to participate in voluntary organizations and politics. Other authors, such as Chiua (2006) argue that virtual communities increase knowledge sharing and social ties, while Hampton & Wellman (2003) discovered that

160 participation in local online discussion groups improved bonding social capital among neighbors and facilitated the mobilization of resources to solve local problems. Among our sampled population, people who are using the internet more after the SFIWT also participate significantly more (p>.005) in local organization (Tab. 7) and in voluntary actions in their community (Tab. 8). This positive relation is also true for people who are listening more to radio, who had also showed more disposition to participate in voluntary actions in their community before the SFIWT. However, there is no significant relation between people who are watching more TV and their participation in local organizations and voluntary actions in the community before the SFIWT, as well as people who are listening more to radio after the SFIWT and their participation in local organizations (Tab. 8 and 9).

Table 8: Relation between listening more to Radio, watching more TV, and using Internet more and participation in local organizations - N=214

Categories Test Applied Test Value DF Prob>ChiSq Radio ChiSquare 1,679 3 0,6416 TV ChiSquare 3,803 3 0,2835 Internet ChiSquare 18,982 3 0,0003*

Table 9: Relation between listening more to Radio, watching more TV, and using Internet more and voluntary actions before the SFIWT - N=214

Categories Test Applied Test Value DF Prob>ChiSq Radio ChiSquare 13,189 3 0,0401* TV ChiSquare 12,012 3 0,0617 Internet ChiSquare 20,055 3 0,0027*

161 However, it is important to stress that these results do not imply causality. The fact that people who are using internet more after the SFIWT also participates more in local organizations and local voluntary actions, doesn’t mean that the SFIWT is the cause of it. Nor that the TV is the cause of low participation in local organizations, either. It only indicates a significant statistic relation between both variables, which should be further investigated for a better understanding. Either way, the fact is that there is a statistic relation between those variables and understanding the impact of radio, TV, and the internet in local level social capital can be a way to promote their use to increment social capital, with possible positive implications to drought management strategies and water access and distribution.

4.8 Cohesion and Social Inclusion

Cohesion and social inclusion are the various forms of divisions, differences, similarities, and conflicts within a given community. It refers to the mechanisms by which different groups are included or excluded from decision-making processes and key public services. The investigation of this dimension of social capital sought to identify the nature and extent of these differences and similarities, possible divisions, and identification of groups that are excluded from key public services (Grootaert et al., 2004), especially related to water. From a macro social perspective, document analysis and interviews had already exposed how social exclusion mechanisms were historically constructed in the Cariri, and possibly in the whole semiarid region of Brazil. In summary, those who inherited lands from the Portuguese Crown through the sesmaria system have control over natural and economic resources in the Cariri and use them to exert their political power. Also, in the beginning of the 20th century, a public scheme based on the

162 rationale to respond to drought increased even more their control over water resources. Through linking social capital directly to the federal government, the local oligarchy in the semiarid region of Brazil had private reservoirs constructed with public resources. From that moment onwards, the first sign of drought triggers municipal emergency declarations which allow the federal government to buy millions of dollars in water from the same reservoirs they built with public resources in private property and hire a fleet of water-trucks from the very same reservoir owners to distribute water in the Cariri and in the whole semiarid region. This scheme described in detail in section 4.1. “Social Structure, Network, and Social Capital”, shows not only the mechanism by which the local society was divided, but also how the great majority of the population is systematically excluded from water services in the benefit of a few oligarchical families. These families don’t live in the Cariri, but mainly in three other well-structured cities such as João Pessoa, the capital of the state of Paraíba; Campina Grande, the biggest city in the semiarid region of Paraíba; and Brasília, the capital of Brazil. Therefore, the local oligarchy is not physically present in the Cariri society, even though their influence in the local social structure is still strong. Their physical distance from the Cariri, according to interviews and field observations, is directly related to lack of local infrastructure and services, evidencing the poor quality of basic public services such as education, health, transportation and water. However, this point of view is not necessarily shared among the local population. The survey indicates that the great majority of the local population understands they have access to water services (89%), even though all municipalities considered in this study don’t get even close to this number regarding piped water and

163 sewer system services per household. My hypothesis is that, if water of any quality can be accessed via water-trucks, artesian wells, or even cacimbas (holes on the ground slowly filled by underground water), it is locally considered as having water services. Remember that the municipalities with greater number of households with piped water are Cabaceiras (75%) and Boqueirão (73%). Regarding sewer systems,

Monteiro (56%) and Boqueirão (50%) present the best numbers (Fig.7, p.106). The worst municipalities in these regards are Caturité with only 45% of households with piped water and Camalaú with only 18% of households with sewer system. The same could be applied for other public services. For example, when interviewing a poor householder living along the East Canal of the SFIWT, she stated that they have good education, health, and public transportation systems, and that the only thing missing is water, because the construction of the East Canal drained her artesian well three years ago. However, she has no bus stops anywhere near her home. Every day she must walk almost 2 miles to take a very precarious bus only available during weekdays. Nevertheless, it is locally considered access to public transportation. The local public health clinic is always full, poorly equipped, and treats only non- serious diseases. For serious illness she would have to travel to Campina Grande, a two-hour ride by car, which she doesn’t have, and three hours by inter-municipal bus, which she doesn’t have money to pay. Nevertheless, it is considered access to health services. The school is also precarious. Her children must walk for almost one hour to get to school (some other children from rural areas walk up to 3 hours to get to school), which lacks basic infrastructure, food, and even water. Nevertheless, it is considered access to education.

164 In fact, those public services are there but they are highly ineffective, making it fair to say that most population in the Cariri is excluded from good quality public services. Looking back in history, this population has been so deprived from public attention that now the minimum they have is considered good. This systematic exclusion from public services, as mentioned by a state deputy during an interview

(Interviewee 29), serves a political purpose too in the Cariri:

Water, as well as many other public services, are often used as bargaining chips. For example, the councilman from Caraúbas is also the municipal doctor. He wins votes with the scalpel. If he drops the scalpel, he loses the elections on time… It is to say that this councilman attends the population for a low price or send them in his private car or van to receive medical care in Campina Grande with his doctor friends. Thus, the population is grateful to him because they received the medical attention they needed, which, by the way, is far from being an adequate care. Therefore, it is not interesting for the doctor-councilman to pressure the government for quality public health, because he is afraid that without these favors he will not be re-elected. The population of the Cariri is poorly educated and understand that this doctor-councilman is a very generous man, a Good Samaritan, when in fact he is performing a function that would have to be public and of good quality.

In this sense, just like water, access to health services also depends on social capital in the Cariri, accessed through social and political relations, and not by regular public or even private services. To have access to good education, health, water, and transportation services (just to mention a few), families must have economic resources to buy private services offered generally outside the Cariri region, economic resources that they don’t have. In practical terms, it means that the great majority of the local population is excluded from good quality public services and depend on their contacts

165 to access services that implicitly involve the exchange of favors in form of votes, loyalty, and all sorts of cheap and sometimes abusive work. Within this population, interviews revealed they see themselves as equals. “Here, everybody has more or less the same life”, said a family farmer from Monteiro (Interviewee 06). Another interviewee from Caraúbas (Interviewee 13) also said “In my sítio, everybody has the same needs. When there is no water, there is no water for everybody”. Among them, some other differences like religion and political association were also not relevant or mentioned as a potential area of conflict.

Participation in local-level decision making process Regarding participation in local level decision-making processes, another important variable of social inclusion, the survey reveals that 62% of the local population has never participated in any meeting or activities to decide how water from the SFIWT was going to be managed, and 24% has participated “only once”. After the completion of the SFIWT, people’s participation in the decision-making process was even lower, with 72% of the sampled population declaring that they were never invited to any meeting or activities to decide about how this new source of freshwater should be managed.

Considering that “community consultations” were part of the federal implementation plan of the SFIWT (Ministry of National Integration of Brazil, 2004), it is clear that most people living in the Cariri are also excluded from local level decision-making processes regarding water management. Examining the heterogeneity of people who never participated in public consultations or community decision- making processes regarding the SFIWT, they are scattered through all different municipalities included in this study, they have different levels of education,

166 occupation, and have different monthly income. In a demographical sense, no pattern could be found. However, when correlating participation in public consultations or decision-making processes related to the SFIWT and participation in local organizations, the result shows a significant (p<0.001) relation between both variables. The likelihood of participating in decision-making processes regarding waters from the SFIWT increases 46% if a person also participates in at least one local organization. This result is aligned with Putnam’s (2000) theory of social capital which predicts that participation in local organizations increases people’s involvement with important local issues and collective solutions, which for many researchers and international organizations, like the UN agencies, are also considered better solutions. This recent trend to include individuals in the decision-making process of water resource management is based on the idea that “all those who are influenced by management decisions should be given the opportunity to actively participate in the decision-making process” (Pahl-Wostl et al, 2007, p.2) as well as that “people are endowed with equal individual autonomy, providing them not only with freedom to act and develop their individual talents, but also making them responsible for the consequences of their own actions” (Bergsma et al., 2012 apud. Held, 1994; Pojman, 1999; Simmons, 2008). Both approaches can be seen as complementary, since one reinforces a democratic and rightful decision-making process, while the other focuses more on individual responsibility with social and environmental developments. However, genuine public participation in water management processes are a consequence of a more mature and deliberative democracy, generally promoted by European countries and international organizations, as the UN, which strongly advocates for community participation in all phases of their projects. The goal is

167 making the local population also responsible for important decisions and final achievements, and create the right conditions for social learning and local development (Pahl-Wostl et al., 2008). The Cariri, however, is still ruled by a patron-client relationship (Nelson and Finan, 2009) where most local population are passive receptors of public services and programs. It is important, though, to recognize that there has been a slow change in this scenario, but not enough to create the right conditions for a truly participatory local development. The region lacks governance and legal structure for that, as well as generalized access to knowledge and information, understood as basic conditions for collaborative water management processes (Pahl-Wostl et al., 2008).

Closeness and social differences

In terms of closeness among people from the same neighborhood, there was a slight but significant difference before and after the SFIWT. Before, most people perceived their neighbors as close (50%) or very close (6%), with just a few describing their level of proximity as distant (4%) and very distant (1%). The reminder (38%) preferred to describe their closeness as neither distant or close. After the SFIWT, the number of people who described the level of proximity with their neighbors as distant or very distant remained the same, while there was an increase of 8% of people describing this relationship as being close (55%) or very close (9%). In this sense, the SFIWT shows a tendency to increase people’s closeness and consequently the quantity and quality of local level bonding social capital. When it comes to differences and similarities among people living in the same neighborhood, just a few (8%) understand that they are very different, followed by those who understand they are different (26%). The majority, however, understand

168 that their differences are small (44%) or even very small (20%), a result confirmed by the interviews. Both results, closeness and social differences, tell us that the local society in the Cariri is more homogeneous than heterogeneous. Beyond demographic data like economic status and religion, which is very similar throughout the whole Cariri, the local population also perceive themselves as being closer and more like each other than distant and different. According to Beggs et al. (2017), closeness and similarities are valuable indicators of strong social ties and important as conduits of informal supports and social integration. In a disaster context, both features have shown potential to increase community capacity to respond to and recover more efficiently (Aldrich, 2011; Aldrich & Meyer, 2015; Cai, 2017). Add to this an increase in trust and quality of participation in local organizations, as revealed previously, and we have a scenario where it is possible to say that the local population has been empowered by this megaproject.

The diversion [SFIWT] has been positive. People got very excited. People had that excitement and hope that their lives would improve. That was a very good thing and I think it is slowly motivating them to get more involved with important issues for our region. (Interviewee 13, president of the Union of Rural Workers)

The president a local settlement for people displaced by the SFIWT

(Interviewee 10), with the support of other families living in the same village, even decided to go to the federal court:

Three months ago, I did something I never thought before… I went to the federal court because of the water supply here in our village. Then, a private company started to supply us with water-trucks, two water- trucks a day, and we were controlling the use of this water. However, this week, the company told us they are going to suspend the service and that's the end… He did not give us an explanation or anything. So, we are out of water, again.

169 He won and then he lost again, evidencing the constant struggle for water in the Cariri. With more water available in the region, visible to the eyes, but not within reach of their hands, people are getting together and participating more in an attempt to have their fair share of water to produce and prosper. As previous findings showed,

68% of the sampled population perceive they are more engaged in important issues for their community after the SFIWT and 37% agree that their organization interacts more with other groups, a change also confirmed by local NGO managers during the interviews. Even with most people perceiving themselves as close and equal, when it comes to water services, almost 70% of the sampled population recognized that before the SFIWT there were some families in their community who had less access to water than other families. This observation is corroborated by many interviewees from local NGOs, universities, and small farmers who also identified that some communities were more vulnerable to drought than others. Beyond the historical and systematic exclusion of the Cariri population to water services, among themselves are families with even less access to water, who could be considered the excluded from the excluded. This second layer of social exclusion have different causes, though, and are more related to geolocation factors than social and power structures, as mentioned by some interviewees and observed during field observations. The characteristics of this group and their access to water from the SFIWT is described in detail in the sub- sections Most vulnerable population (p. 122) and Access to water in the Cariri after the SFIWT (p. 127).

170 Violence and Crime The last indicator of social capital analyzed under the dimension of cohesion and social inclusion is violence. Numerous studies have repeatedly shown that social capital is inversely associated with violence and crimes (Galea et al., 2002; Roh & Lee, 2013). In the literature, different dimensions of social capital have been tested to understand how they influence violence or even predict variations in crime rates. Galea et al. (2002), for example, investigated the relation between membership in local organization and levels of trust with homicide in US, finding that state-level measures of trust can predict homicide mortality while there is “a significant decrease in trust as homicide rates rise” (p.1382). A study conducted in Tokyo demonstrated that trust, reciprocity, and supportive networks were each inversely associated with crime victimization (Takagi et al., 2012). World Bank case studies in Cambodia and

Ruanda shows “the negative effect of violence, viewed as both an independent (a cause) and a dependent (an effect) variable of social capital” (Dudwick et al., 2006, p. 22). In the Cariri, the levels of violence and crime rate are low compared with other municipalities in Paraíba state and Brazil. The most violent municipality included in this study, considering homicides per 100.000 inhabitants, is Boqueirão with 23.3

(Tab. 10), which could be considered high in comparison to Europe’s average of 3, but in comparison with João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba state, and its 56,6 homicides per 100.000 inhabitants, it is relatively low.

171 Table 10: Homicide per 100.000 in 2010. Source: Violence Map Brazil - Estadão - Retrieved from: https://www.estadao.com.br/infograficos/cidades,mapa- da-violencia-no-brasil,280781

Municipality Homicide rate per Ranking in Paraíba 100.000 Boqueirão 23.3 13th Congo 16.7 30th Monteiro 11.8 55th São Domingos do 8.1 83rd Cariri Caraúbas 5.2 121st Caturité 4.4 137th Cabaceiras 0.0 168th Camalaú 0.0 168th

Even though the results for homicides per municipality in the Cariri are not available after 2010, the Violence Atlas of Brazil shows a significant reduction in deaths by firearms in the state of Paraíba from 2011 to 2016, which jumped from 3rd to 18th place among the most violent states of Brazil (Waiselfisz, 2016). In numbers, it means a reduction of more than 20% in violent homicides (Waiselfisz, 2016). The sampled population also perceive that the levels of violence in the Cariri is low. When participants of the survey were asked about levels of violence in their neighborhoods, most answered that their community is peaceful (62%) or very peaceful (7%), totalizing 69% of the sampled population. On the other hand, people who perceive their community as violent (6%) or very violent (2%), represent together 8% of the sampled population, while the reminder (22%) understands that their community is neither peaceful nor violent. According to the literature on violence and social capital, this is a indicative of high levels of bonding social capital, more specifically

172 perceived trust (Putnam, 2000; Galea et al. 2002; Roh & Lee, 2013), reciprocity, and supportive networks (Takagi et al., 2012). “It is very quiet here... The only crime we have are drunk people fighting during the weekends”, said a local merchant from São Domingos do Cariri (Interviewee 28). During the field observation, I could notice that most of the residents do not lock their houses or cars and all of them refers to their neighbors by their names. It was very common also to hear from interviewees or during informal conversations that they “know everybody in the region” and they feel safe living in urban or rural settings in the Cariri. Regarding the impacts of the SFIWT in levels of violence in the region, for the great majority (71%) the levels of violence remain the same with the SFIWT. For 6%, violence increased a lot and for 12% a little due to the SFWIT. For 9% it has decreased a little (4%) or a lot (5%). Interviews and informal conversations also revealed that the local population doesn’t attribute to the SFIWT any significant impact in local violence. The only crime or violent acts associated with the SFIWT are fights and minor disturbances around new touristic hotspots along the margin of the Paraíba river after people get drunk, as mentioned in section 4.1. “Physical Structure and Social Capital” (p.106-110). Other public policies, specifically the new Rural

Retirement policy, are seen as more important causes for increased violence in the region. According to informal reports and formal interviews, in the payday or just a few days after, the number of armed robberies and violence against retirees increases. Generally, still according to informal reports, these crimes are perpetuated by criminals from other municipalities and not by their own citizens.

173 4.9 Empowerment and Subjective Well-Being The social capital dimension of empowerment and subjective well-being explores the influence of the SFIWT in the sense of satisfaction and personal efficacy that motivates individuals to participate in local events and influence broader political outcomes (Dudwick et al., 2006). After all, the SFIWT is an engineering marvel of great proportion right in the middle of one of the poorest regions of Brazil, but above all, it represents a reliable source of freshwater capable of minimizing all losses and suffering caused by drought. The existing literature on social capital and subjective well-being indicates that variables such as trust and volunteering have a positive relation with subjective well- being (Helliwell et al., 2014; Matsushima & Matsunaga, 2015), helping people to overcome period of personal crisis such as unemployment (Winkelmann, 2009) and social-economic crisis as disasters and conflicts (Tang et al., 2012; Aldrich, 2011; Aldrich & Meyer, 2015). While investigating social capital trends in 11 European countries, Sarracino (2010) also found a strong connection between social capital and happiness, which, according to him, showed more positive and long term effects on subjective well-being than economic capital. According to the World Bank (2002) and Grootaert et al.(2004), subjective social well-being is also positively related to empowerment, defined here as personal or group capacity to influence both local events and broader political outcomes. Therefore, the higher the levels of personal or group subjective well-being, higher the chances of increased political engagement and community participation. Life is hard in the Cariri. Poverty and drought are a combination that causes agony and suffering for most people in the world, sometimes forcing migrations and making life unbearable. In such harsh conditions, subjective well-being would be

174 expected to be very low. As in Coêlho et al. (2004), people living in drought areas in the state of Paraíba had significantly higher levels of anxiety and emotional distress than residents of no-drought areas, with different impacts on men and women. In drought areas, women showed significantly higher levels of anxiety than men, and men had significantly higher levels of emotional distress than women (Coêlho et al.

2004). During some interviews for this research, I could also recognize these feelings in verbal and body expressions, but they were far from being predominant in local people`s discourse. As showed in the survey, most of the sampled population consider themselves happy (56%) or very happy persons (33%). The reminder answered that they are unhappy (8%) or very unhappy (1%). This subjective feeling of happiness increased even more with the inauguration of the SFIWT. More than half of the sampled population stated that, after the SFIWT, they are happier than before (56%), while for 43% the SFIWT didn’t make any change in their happiness. Only 2% of the sampled population are unhappier after the SFIWT. During formal and informal interviews, I tried to understand what exactly was making them happier about the SFIWT considering that, for most people, this mega-infrastructure wasn’t benefitting them at all in terms of access to water.

Most of the answers were about their hopes and dreams. The sound of water flowing and the vision of rivers and reservoirs full all year long keep their imagination of a green and prosperous Cariri. During my first field trip, from Campina Grande to São João do Cariri, I passed by a bridge over the Taperoá river, in Cabaceiras, and saw about seven or eight cars parked on the bridge (Fig. 22). People were outside the cars looking at the river and we decided to stop to see what was happening. People were

175 mostly staring at the river, chatting, and apparently happy. A father was carrying a boy, maybe five or six years old, and pointing to the river while saying something into his ears. I talked to some people over the bridge and they told me it has been more than five years since that river was completely dry, and only now waters were flowing in it again. A mother of two, 4 and 6 years old, said to me: “My children had never saw a river, only on TV”. She was very pleased and positive about the SFIWT too. “It will help us a lot. Hope my children don’t have to go through droughts like me”, said the woman with few, but powerful words.

Figure 22: Cars parked on a bridge over the Taperoá river to watch the river. In the upper left, the municipality of Cabaceiras. Photo took from drone, Aesa, April 2018

176 Formal interviews also reveal a similar perception. Common words to describe their feelings were “felicidade” and “festa”, or joy and party, respectively in English.

Soon as water arrives in the Cariri, by the diversion [SFIWT] or rain, there is an immense joy. When it rains people gets extremely excited, it’s like a party. Having access to water, even in small quantities, is a great joy... (Interviewee 05, professor of hydrology at UFPB).

The primary care coordinator of the municipality of Boqueirão (Interviewee 16) also said:

When water from the diversion [SFIWT] arrived in Monteiro, it was a party. I took lots of pictures... That day was crazy! (…) I had to go see water from the São Francisco River arriving in Monteiro. Water from the São Francisco River in the Cariri region was a great joy. A great party!

Other interviewees told me that they used to hear stories from their parents or grandparents that freshwater from the São Francisco river would arrive someday, transforming the whole region. Stories they didn’t believe would be possible. Now, it is there, and it is real. As stated by a community health worker from Caturité (Interviewee 20) and who applied almost 20 questionnaires for this research:

My father used to tell stories about a better future after the diversion of the São Francisco river. He would say, "This water will arrive one day, it will come…" But it never did… He couldn’t see it materialized, but I can, and I know it represents an immense transformation for our region. Sometimes, I think I'm dreaming… Dreaming with something that my father already said to me… something I thought would never happen…

The curious thing is that she doesn’t have piped water at home and is not being benefitted in any way by the SFIWT in regard of water accessibility. Other residents in her surroundings are even being negatively affected by the SFIWT (e.g. loss of artisan

177 wells, water limitation for farming, rural isolation). However, her testimony illustrates the constant contradiction found in the region. Hope and joy at one side. Anger and frustration on the other. Maybe, this is because the SFIWT is both positive and negative at the same time. It raises concerns, problems, and reveals many local vulnerabilities. It also represents a dream come true, a possibility of a better future, and a way out of poverty. Not by chance, the survey shows that most of the population (51%) believes that the SFIWT is the definite solution for water problems in the Cariri (considering the margin of error of 7%), followed by those who don’t believe that the SFIWT is going to solve once and for all problems related to water accessibility and distribution (30%). The reminder still has doubts (19%). The survey also shows that, in comparison with the period before the SFIWT,

41% stated that they are now more active persons in their communities, while for 59% the SFIWT made no difference at all in their communal actives. It is interesting to notice that no one answered that the SFIWT made them less active in their communities. These feelings of hope and happiness empowers people and are associated with engagement in local organizations and volunteer activities (Grootaert et al., 2004). As demonstrated in sections 4.1 “Social Structure, Network, and Social

Capital” and 4.4. “Groups and Social Network”, participation in local organizations increases the chances of access to local resources, including water. In this sense, the SFIWT could be influencing personal and social well-beings in the region, leading to an increase in the quality of participation and engagement with local issues related to water-resource management.

178

CONCLUSION

In this chapter I summarize major findings on the impact of the SFIWT on the social capital of the Cariri region and identify contributions of this study to disaster science and management. First, I highlight the benefits of examining social capital from a historical perspective, followed by a concise description of changes in the local social structure and network due to the SFWIT. Then, I describe the main impacts of the SFIWT on bonding, bridging, and linking types of social capitals, confronting the hypothesis with the results.

Finally, I state the significance of these findings and main contributions to science, specifically referring to drought management and climate change adaptation in the semiarid region of Brazil and conclude with a recognition of the limitations of this research and recommendations of future studies.

5.1 Summary of Major Findings

5.1.1 Historical and contextualized understanding of social capital

In this dissertation, I assessed the impact of the SFIWT on the social capital of the Cariri, a highly vulnerable region to drought and the first one to receive water from this mega-infrastructure. The results suggest that, after one year of its inauguration, the SFIWT is already causing changes in the social capital of the Cariri, with possible implications for the local capacity to deal with drought.

179 However, before looking at present and future implications of the SFIWT on social capital, I would like to highlight the importance of understanding the past. Comprehending how local relationships were established and maintained is crucial to expose the distribution of local resources, especially water. In this case study, for example, without a historical analysis, it would be difficult to understand how such a small group of people had gained control over most local natural resources and why they are better positioned to benefit from the SFIWT than the rest of the population. History and context were also helpful to indicate future directions to improve local level social capital as a tool to mitigate drought. Above all, it exposed some of the root causes of drought, which are more related to internal social processes than the natural occurrence of drought phenomenon.

5.1.2 Water and Social Capital In the semiarid region of Brazil there is a saying: O problema não é a seca, é a cerca. It is a pun with the words drought (seca) and fence (cerca) which in English it would sound like: “The problem is not the drought, but the fences”. It means that it would have water for everyone if not for the fences, which means here the control over natural resource. This control was obtained centuries ago by pure social capital, when families close-related to the Portuguese Crown received the right to explore Brazil, profit from the land and ship valuable resources to Portugal. Over centuries, these families increased their political power and expanded their influence across the country. Nowadays, in the Cariri, the descendants of these families are still the owners of the land and water resources that comes with it, including some reservoirs constructed with public resources in their lands.

180 In this sense, water is not a human right, as it should be, but a valued resource controlled by the local elite to maintain their political influence and increase their economic power. The main implications are, first, lack of political will to build simple plumbing infrastructure to distribute water in the Cariri. Second, drought becomes a profitable business for those who have water in the region, feeding the so called

“industry of drought” (Section 4.1. Social Structure, Network, and Social Capital), where these families sell water and a fleet of private water-trucks to the federal government as a response to drought. Without a good understanding of this context, drought mitigation plans focusing on increasing local water supplies have a great chance of falling into the trap of reinforcing local inequalities and historical power relations, since these new water resources might be held by the ones who have control over local resources. To avoid this trap, more attention should be devoted to managing a transition from the current water management regime to more adaptive regimes centered on participatory methods and nature-based solutions. This implies a paradigm shift in water resource management from a top-down decision-making approach based more on politics than population needs to a management model mediated by the local population, based on local needs and technical decisions, respecting local environmental characteristics, and legally supported by water and land reforms (Carvalho & Almeida, 2008). Increasing water supply in the Cariri with traditional engineering infrastructure is extremely important to improve local resilience to drought, but to reach the most vulnerable it is still not sufficient. Therefore, engineering solutions, environmental protection, and participatory processes should be blended in one integrated and more complex plan to minimize the risk of drought. This is a long-term process which

181 depends on coordinated actions among all local actors, but especially channeled by the public sector, who is in position to promote land and water reforms, provide good quality public services, and create democratic spaces to debate better solutions for water resource management. Without these conditions, little can be done to promote a fair distribution of local natural resources and reduce economic and social inequalities, identified here as the root causes of drought disasters in the Cariri.

5.1.3 Impact of the SFIWT in the Social Structure of the Cariri: Politics, Power, and Water Hypotheses: 1) The ones already excluded from access to water and water management decision-making processes will remain excluded after the SFIWT.

2) The SFIWT is contributing to accentuate pre-existing inequalities or creating new inequalities and conflict around water distribution and management in the Cariri.

The results suggest these hypotheses are true. Data from the survey, interviews, field observation, and document analysis consistently show that the great majority of the most vulnerable populations to drought, who were identified as poor family farmers and who are historically deprived from access to water, are not being benefitted by the SFIWT. Most of the water from this mega-infrastructure has been used to supply Campina Grande, the biggest city in the semiarid region of Brazil, and some other small urban centers. With no access to this new source of freshwater to increase their agricultural production and not many local options to complement household income, these poor

182 family farmers are still tied to their role of passive receivers of public benefits, feeding the cycle of endemic poverty. Family farmers living along the Paraíba river, for example, used to take water from the river during the rainy season for their annual crop production. Now, after the SFIWT, they can only use water from the Paraíba river for subsistence farming (0,5 hectares) and only if using water saving technologies. As a result, from around 550 registered poor family farmers no more than 150 are using water from the river, but all of them lost their main source of annual income from commercial farming. The family farmers who were displaced because of the construction of the East-Canal and relocated to government-made Rural Productive Villages and are now facing water shortages worse than ever before. The Rural Productive Villages do not have plumbing system nor a reliable source of freshwater and still depend on water- trucks. After one year, they are unable to produce anything, and residents must rely on government stipend to buy food and water. Farmers living along the East-Canal who could not be relocated to Rural Productive Villages lost all their artesian wells (drained into the canal) and do not have access to the water running in the East canal, just a few hundred feet from their properties. For not having piped water, they all depend on water-trucks too, but differently from the residents of Rural Productive

Villages, they do not receive government stipends. These impacts on vulnerable populations have the potential to increase even more local economic inequalities. As the power of elites grow in the Cariri, societal gaps widen. This growing divide between the privileged and the rest of Cariri society has the potential of, in the long-term, increasing local vulnerabilities to drought and even conflict for water.

183 5.1.4 Impact of the SFIWT on Bonding, Bridging, and Linking Social Capitals If on one hand there is no evidence of changes in the local social structure, on the other the SFIWT has been already causing impacts in the local social network at different levels. The social structure is the distribution of population among the various social groups (Bunge, 1974) which are ranked-ordered according to cultural and social valued resources such as class, authority, and economic status (Lin, 2001).

In the Cariri, the social structure has a pyramidal shape in terms of accessibility, possession, and control of resources, with the local elite on the top and descendants of slaves and indigenous people at the bottom. The research instruments of this study didn’t capture any change in this structure after the SFIWT. The social network refers to the patterns of interaction among people and groups from the same or adjacent social hierarchical levels within the frame of the social structure. And here is where things are starting to change in the Cariri due to the SFIWT. Changes in the quantity and the quality of these interactions were captured by different research tools designed to, first, understand the main characteristics of local level social capital prior to the SFIWT. Second, detect changes in bonding, bridging, and linking types of social capital after the SFIWT, considering variables of six different dimensions: 1) Groups and Network, 2) Collective Actions and Cooperation,

3) Trust and Solidarity, 4) Information and Communication, 5) Cohesion and Social Inclusion, 6) Empowerment and Social Well-Being. A summary of the most significant results captured by the survey in each of these six dimensions of social capital can be found in the table below (Tab. 10). These six dimensions were reported separately in Chapter 4 - Results and Discussion - but were incorporated here as dynamic features of each type of social capital (bonding, bridging, and linking). In the analysis and conclusion, it was also integrated results

184 from the interviews and document analysis to understand changes in the quality and quantity of social capital captured by the survey.

Table 11: Summary of statistically significant changes in the six dimensions of social capital due to the SFIWT in the Cariri captured by the survey (Applied between April and May 2018).

Dimension Positive Impact Negative Impact 1 - Groups and Network 43% of the sampled population who participates in at least one local organization perceive that their organization has more members now than before the SFIWT.

33% agree their participation in local organizations has increased after the SFIWT.

For 37% of the sampled population who participates in at least one local organization understand their group interacts more with other groups after the SFIWT.

23% of the total sampled population reported having more friends after the SFIWT.

185 2 - Trust and Solidarity For 35% of the total There was no significant sampled population change in levels of trust levels of trust in their at municipal, state, and neighbors have federal government improved. levels before and after the SFIWT. 74% of the total sampled population agree totally or partially that most people in their community are willing to help if needed. However, there was no significant change after the SFIWT.

3 - Collective Actions and 68% of the total sampled Cooperation population agree they became more engaged in important issues for their community after the SFIWT.

4 - Information and After the SFIWT: Communication 35% of the total sampled population are using the internet more. 30% are listening more to radio. 29% are watching more TV.

People who are using the internet more after the SFIWT also participate significantly more (p>.005) in local organization and in voluntary actions in their community.

186 People who are listening more to radio, participate significantly more (p>.005) in local in voluntary actions in their community.

5 - Social Cohesion and 38% of the total sampled 62% of the local Inclusion population participated population has never once (24%) or more than participated in any once (14%) in meetings meeting or activities to or activities to decide decide how water from how water from the the SFIWT was going to SFIWT was going to be be managed before the managed before the construction was construction was completed. After the completed. These SFIWT, there was an numbers dropped to increase of 10% of 28% after the SFIWT people who didn’t started to be participate in any operational, where 15% meeting or activities on participated once and how water is going to be 13% more than once in managed. meetings or activities on how water is going to be managed.

56% of the total sampled population perceived their neighbors as close (50%) or very close (6%). After the SFIWT there was an increase of 8% of people describing this relationship as being close (55%) or very close (9%).

187 89% of the total sampled population understand they have access to water services, a number way below the number of households with piped water in all municipalities investigated in this research.

The likelihood of participating in the decision-making process regarding waters from the SFIWT increases 46% if a person also participates in at least one local organization.

6 - Empowerment and 56% of the total sampled 59% of the total Well-Being population stated that population understand the SFIWT made them the SFIWT made no happier than before, difference at all for their while for 43% the SFIWT communal actives. didn’t make any change in their happiness.

51% believes that the SFIWT is the final solution for water problems in the Cariri.

41% of the total sampled population perceive they are more active in their communities after the SFIWT.

188 5.1.5 Bonding Social capital Hypothesis: The SFIWT is causing a decline in bonding social capital due to lower perception of risk of drought and water scarcity.

The results of quantitative and qualitative data analysis suggest the SFIWT has more positive than negative impacts on bonding type social capital in the Cariri.

Bonding social capital is the connection among people and groups who share similar demographic characteristics. In a scenario of social and economic inequalities, as it is in the Cariri, bonding type of social capital tends to increase at different social layers (Pelling and High, 2005; Ranjan, 2014). In the upper layer, the elite unite in a close group to protect and expand their resources and political influence. In the lower layers, poor family farmers also invest in bonding ties to overcome their lack of structural and economic resources. Interviews, survey, and field observation provided enough evidence to support this assumption, refuting the hypothesis that the SFIWT would decrease levels of bonding type social capital. This hypothesis was elaborated based on the positive relation between bonding social capital and drought risk perception, as proposed by Ranjan (2014). He noticed that in Australia bonding social capital increases to higher levels every time small farmers are faced with higher levels of risk or longer span of drought events. If bonding social capital increases because of higher levels of risk and droughts, it should decrease with lower levels of risk and periods of normalcy. In the Cariri, after the SFIWT, drought risk perception decreased as expected. People are hopeful that droughts won’t have such a heavy toll on them as it did in the past. The majority believes that the SFIWT will solve their problems of water scarcity and most of them are happier now than before the SFIWT. However, instead of a

189 reduction in bonding social capital, our results indicate that bonding social capital is increasing. Local organizations reported that people are more active and involved with their organizations and almost half of our sampled population perceive themselves as more active in their communities now than before the SFIWT. Also, since most people are not being benefitted by the SFIWT, they kept the local strategy of reinforcing bonding social capital to maintain access to shared resources. After the SFIWT, most of the sampled population kept the same number of friends as before while a significant 23% reported having more friends. No significant number of people reported having fewer friends than before the SFIWT. Structural changes in the municipalities also have shown potential to change quality and quantity of bonding social capital in the Cariri. Now that the Paraíba river and some of its tributaries are perennial rivers due to the SFIWT, a new space for reinforcing social ties was created. The riverside has become a touristic attraction throughout the whole year, bringing people together for leisure activities such as fishing, swimming, eating, drinking, and listening to music. Since these tourists share the same social and cultural characteristics, these new gathering hotspots are considered a potential place to increase bonding social capital, where people can exchange information, knowledge, social support, reinforcement of cultural identity, and increase their local networking. Not by coincidence, levels of trust within the community, one of the most cited indicators of bonding social capital, are also increasing for a significant part of our sampled population (34%) after the SFIWT, even though the general level of trust still lower than expected for the region. This is because most of the population understand that their family, friends, and neighbors (sources of bonding social capital) don’t have the resources they need when it comes

190 to mitigate drought and prefer relying on politicians and organizations to have access to freshwater. On the other hand, with rivers in the Cariri becoming perennial some rural roads were permanently flooded, isolating rural families. This unintended consequence of the SFIWT is now making it difficult for these families to visit and receive visits from friend and relatives, and to participate in social events and local NGO meetings. The survey also revealed that almost one third of the local population of the Cariri is watching more TV, listening more to radio, and especially accessing more the internet after the SFIWT. As demonstrated by Putnam (1995) and Neil and Erbring (2000), these kinds of home-based entertainment can cause a decline in bonding social capital too, since more time people spend in the virtual world, more they lose contact with their immediate social network.

Bonding social capital and vulnerability to drought These changes in bonding social capital due to the SFIWT, however, have a limited role in eliminating local vulnerabilities and offering pathways to long-term drought solutions (Cai, 2017; Hawkins & Maurer, 2010) in the Cariri. As in Dynes (2005, 2006), bonding social capital increases the chances of individuals to be rescued, receive medical attention, evacuate safely, and receive assistance during emergency situations. Hawkins & Maurer (2010) and Aldrich (2012) also concluded that bonding social capital allows people to receive early warnings for emergency evacuation, locate shelter and supplies, and obtain immediate aid and initial recovery assistance. But, differently from other kinds of disasters, droughts don’t require most of these actions where bonding social capital could be the difference between life and death.

Droughts are creeping disasters, which gradually affect food and water security. Thus,

191 bonding with people with limited access to water and limited physical and economic resources don’t offer much advantage other than social support, which is very important but not crucial to immediate response to drought and long-term mitigation and adaptation processes. For more robust response and management, bridging and linking social capital has been playing a much more significant role as proposed by

Hawkins and Maurer (2012) and Cai (2017).

5.1.6 Bridging social capital Hypothesis: The SFIWT is increasing bridging social capital in the Cariri by promoting new spaces of interaction among people from different social layers and organizations to discuss issues related to water distribution, access, and management.

The results indicate that this hypothesis is true. Bridging social capital is the connection between people and groups that have different views and demographic composition, such as socio-economic status, race, and education (Pretty, 2003; Aldrich and Meyer, 2015). As in van Rijn et al. (2012), bridging social capital in drought prone regions can create access to new knowledge, technologies and resources directed linked with adoption of agricultural innovation.

Pahl-Wostl (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009) gives many examples of how the interaction among different actors promotes the circulation of essential resources to a collective and sustainable water resources management, even though she doesn’t name it as bridging social capital. In the semiarid region of Brazil, the `Living with the Semiarid` network is the main source of bridging social capital to mitigate the impacts of drought. The Living with the Semiarid network is the result of a partnership among national and local

192 organizations with financial and technical support from international organizations. It basically supports local initiatives and solutions developed by family farmers and rural population to improve life conditions at all levels in the semiarid region of Brazil (Carvalho, 2004; Gualdani et al, 2015). Interviews, field observation and the survey revealed that civil society organizations are not very active in the Cariri and have low participation in the Living with the Semiarid network because of conflicts of interest with the local elite. Nevertheless, after the SFIWT, representatives from local civil society organizations have noticed that they are being approached more frequently by universities, national and international research agencies, NGOs, and state and municipal public entities. As a result, from the side of science, there is a great number of publications from different areas of knowledge (e.g. engineering, economy, social sciences, biology, ecology, hydrology) since the SFIWT started to be constructed, in 2007. On behalf of civil society organization, interviews revealed that NGOs from all over the semiarid region are demonstrating more interest in monitoring the impacts of the SFIWT in the Cariri and finding gaps to implement their projects, such as the Caravan of Water and Agroecology, in which I could participate during the fieldwork. Formal and informal groups are also being created to discuss problems and solutions regarding the SFIWT, as the São Francisco River Committee for example, composed of different actors such as researchers, state and federal government representatives, small and big farmers, fisherman, among others. The private sector, especially agribusiness and the clothing industry, has also been portraited by the local media as a possible investor in the local economy because of the increased water availability in the region. Local community leaders and NGO representatives confirmed during

193 interviews that they have been contacted more frequently by these groups after the SFIWT. Even though there are strong indications that bridging social capital might be increasing due to the SFIWT, it worth registering that it is in a different way than suggested by our hypothesis. Our hypothesis previewed an increasing flow of knowledge and information, as well as cooperation among different actors to solve problems related to distribution, access, and management of the new freshwater source. However, it is not possible to conclude that this is happening. Our results only detected an increase in interaction among different kinds of organizations, an increase in scientific production, and manifestation of interest by politicians and the private sector on possible outcomes of the SFIWT in the region. The results do not indicate that this is happening to solve local problems regarding water management nor a significant increase in cooperation among different sectors of the society. Seems like local and foreigner stakeholders are still in an initial phase of contact, probing different possibilities and exploring the benefits of a possible partnership, but with little concrete action and exchange of resources so far.

5.1.7 Linking Social Capital Hypothesis: The SFIWT is increasing linking social capital by promoting contact between regular citizens, local organizations and those in position of power.

Also, by encouraging the local population to be more politically active in the decisions-making process to manage water from the SFIWT.

The results indicate that this hypothesis is false.

194 Linking social capital is the connection of regular citizens and local organizations with those in power. It is a vertical relationship that allows the influx of resources in both ways, top-down and bottom-up, for mutual benefits. Aldrich (2012) express the opinion that even though bonding and bridging social capital convey signiﬁcant advantages for group members, linking social capital often makes the biggest difference in recovery processes. In the Cariri, it also holds true for access, distribution and management of water resources, and consequently for drought mitigation and climate change adaptation strategies. Higher levels of linking social capital in the Cariri can be found at the top of the social pyramid, with the local oligarchy, who use connection with politicians at all levels to allow them to possess, control, and maintain local water resources, including waters from the SFIWT. In this sense, linking social capital works as a river itself, connecting people in position of power with those who can generate benefits for them, allowing water resources to flow between these connections. In this metaphor, the local elite is the main river, while the few people and organizations who serve as bridges between them and lower layers of the local society are the tributary rivers, carrying much less water which will be divided among other people through bonding and bridging social capitals as well.

Nevertheless, other than the São Francisco River Committee, where a few representatives of the government discuss issues related to the SFIWT with different local actors, no other significant change in linking social capital was found in the region due to the SFIWT. Not that this committee represents a change, but at least is a new channel of communication, which, according to its members is not causing any impact in local public policies so far. Linking social capital, in this case, is inseparable

195 from the local social structure constructed along 400 years and the SFIWT has been causing changes in neither of them. Not by coincidence, the survey also registered no significant change in levels of trust at municipal, state, and federal government before and after the SFIWT among regular citizens, suggesting no change in the quality of their relationship.

5.2 Implications for Theory Social capital and drought management in vulnerable regions Scholars have provided many examples of how important social capital is to risk management and emergency response to disasters. Dynes (2005, 2006), for example, talks about the importance of social capital to save lives during emergencies. Aldrich (2010, 2012, 2015), argues that social capital is not only a vital part of community efforts to respond and recover from disasters but also a predictor of the local recovery capacity. Other scholars like Putnam (1993, 1995, 1996, 2000), Ostrom (2000) and Adger (2003) provide strong evidence that social capital contributes to democratic government, participatory resource management, and even economic growth. Like them, many other scholars have been publishing their finding on the benefits of social capital in different disasters’ scenarios. They all noticed that the quality and quantity of local civic engagement, civic trust, and social interaction among people is directly related to their capacity to cooperate and organize efficient pre- and post-disaster actions. Based on these findings, their recommendation for decision makers is generally to focus more on building social ties and cohesion among the most vulnerable than investments solely in infrastructure. This research diverges in some important points from these findings and recommendations regarding drought management in poor and vulnerable regions, like

196 the Cariri. Our results suggest that even though bonding and bridging social capitals are increasing due to the SFIWT, there are no signs that this is directly contributing to the capacity of the most vulnerable population to cope with drought. These findings challenge the view that social capital can promote disaster resilience and adaptation to climate change in virtually all contexts and should be the focus of decision-makers in reducing the risk of disasters and responding to emergencies. This is because social capital, as used by disaster science scholars, is generally understood as something possessed (or not) by communities and directly linked to their capacity to cope with disasters. In this sense, the more social capital a community has, the greatest their capacity to cope with local hazards and recovery from emergencies. This point of view, however, implies that these communities already have the resources they need to cope with local hazards, and what is missing is the connection between people and organizations to potentialize and share these resources among the most vulnerable. In Europe, Japan and in the United States, where most of these researches have been conducted, it makes sense, especially in urban centers, where people are increasingly disconnected and keep accumulating resources. In this scenario, reconnecting people can be extremely powerful in terms of sharing needed resources during emergencies and recovery processes, as well as promoting participatory management of local resources and cooperation towards local improvements. However, in places like the Cariri, where the population is practically homogeneous, highly vulnerable, and with already high levels of bonding social capital, an increase in social capital doesn’t seems to play such an important role for their resilience to drought. The first reason is that they don’t have the resources needed

197 to reduce their vulnerabilities, such as water, land, technology, and high-quality public services. The great majority of small farmers, identified as the most vulnerable population in the Cariri, doesn’t have a plumbing system and still depend on rain water to grow their crops. They are not the owners of the land. They are poor, under- educated, and believe that water is not available because of natural conditions or will of God. Therefore, even if they get together and share all the resources they have, it won’t be sufficient to withstand more intense and frequent droughts to come. In this case, investments in a plumbing system, water saving technologies for agricultural production, drought-resistant seeds, and other technologies to capture rain water, for example, might produce more immediate results than investments in social capital. Besides not having the resources needed locally, bonding social capital is also failing to help the local population organizing themselves to demand their rights and pressure the government, an outcome of social capital well promoted by Putnam and his followers. This lack of a strong and organized civil society in the Cariri is directly linked to the historical power relations in the region, which is generally ignored by scholars who study disasters from a social capital perspective. However, the analysis of these power relations was crucial to understand the role of social capital in the Cariri and how it has been used by those who have access to water resources and those who don’t. As suggested by DeFillipis (2001, p. 789) “Only by ignoring these vitally important, power-laden connections can we assume that communities are the products of the attributes of the individuals who live and work in them”. In other words, once we accept that these local vulnerabilities to droughts are more an outcome of power-relationships than a product of individual actions (or inactions), it is possible to understand that fomenting relationships, or individual

198 actions towards the other members of the community, won’t have any meaningful effect unless there is any kind of intervention or balance in social power relations. In the Cariri, for example, social capital has been historically used by the local elite to maintain control over water resources and political influence in the region. As in Lin (2000), this small group bonds in a tightly-closed relationship to protect their resources and maximize their gains. The consequence, as exposed in this research, is an extremely powerful group who influences decisively the lack of public and private investment in infra-structure to distribute, collect, and treat water, as a strategy to control and expand their own natural and economic resources. In short, the network of trust and cooperation at the community level already exists in the Cariri, and it is not the reason why they are vulnerable to drought. An empirical examination between social capital and access to water showed that the main hurdle for water accessibility and fair distribution is lack of infrastructure and political will, motivated by a protectionism around water resources gained and maintained by social capital in the high society.

Social Impact of Mega-infrastructures Inter-basin water transfers have become a popular strategy to increase water availability in urban and rural settings across the world. Nevertheless, the theoretical body of knowledge on the impact of these mega-infrastructures on social capital and how it contributes to local drought mitigation strategies is still incipient. Thus, the results of this study have much to contribute to theory and practice. This research revealed that just adding water into a social structure where the local elite have historical control over water resources is insufficient to help the most vulnerable populations to overcome water shortages and mitigate the impacts of

199 drought. Therefore, drought mitigation strategies in the semiarid region of Brazil should not be limited to just adding water into the social system, as the SFIWT did, but also enhancing legal instruments and increasing resource allocation to reduce local inequities regarding access to freshwater resources. Even though the SFIWT has been changing social capital in the Cariri, data reveals that this megaproject had more impact on bonding social capital than bridging and linking social capitals. Bonding social capital is important to local strategies to cope with drought, but not enough to overcome the great vulnerabilities found in the region. Bridging and linking social capitals would offer more possibilities to minimize the impacts of drought and promote better adaptation strategies to climate change, as observed by Hawkins and Maurer (2012) and Cai (2017). It was observed that megaprojects like the SFIWT opens many possibilities to foment new relations and transform historical power relations to bring balance to water resource management. For that, vulnerable populations must be invited to participate in decision-making process since the beginning of the project and legal instruments created to assure their fair share of resources to increase local resiliency to drought. However, this opportunity has not been seized in the Cariri and the most vulnerable populations ended up with less access to water than before the SFIWT.

This conclusion also has implications to our understanding of drought disasters. Most literature characterizes drought as a natural phenomenon that changes water availability due to long-term precipitation deficit and soil moisture decline (Glantz, 1994; Smith 2013, Magalhães, 2016). Social constructed vulnerabilities that increase the risk and impacts of drought are regarded as an important, but as separate process (Loon, 2018). Even I, in the beginning of this study, separated drought from

200 water scarcity, considering the first a natural phenomenon and the second a human process (p.44). However, in the Anthropocene, where technology has made possible for humans to accumulate so much water in artificial reservoirs and dams that it is slowing down Earth’s rotation (Chao, 1995; Gross et al. 2004), this separation becomes blurred. All hydrological interventions in the semiarid region of Brazil to mitigate drought such as dams, reservoirs, groundwater abstraction, and now the SFIWT, seem to be actively contributing to drought intensity in the Cariri. The SFIWT, for example, depleted all groundwater along the east-canal, affecting permanently the local water supply in the rural area of the municipality of Monteiro and possibly altering the local water cycle and plant growth rate which that depend on groundwater subtraction (Legates, 2011; Zeri, 2018). Now, many families who used to rely on this groundwater to survive are depending exclusively on public water-trucks to have access to water of questionable quality. More water-trucks mean more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, contributing to climate change and the incidence of droughts. Above all, the SFIWT did bring more water to the Cariri, but the local social structure and networks served as an impeditive to let this water flow to most of the local population, especially those more vulnerable to drought. To assuage their stress and sense of insecurity because lack of water and loss of agricultural production, their main source of income, these families turn to the exploitation of local natural resources leading to desertification processes and soil moisture reduction (Agra et al., 1996; de Souza, 2008; Medeiros, 2012; Travassos & Souza, 2014). Both results of human actions are also contributing factors to hydrological and agricultural droughts respectively (Zeri et al., 2018; Loon et al., 2018), closing a cycle where the natural environment and human society are increasingly entangled.

201 5.3 Limitations Although the research method was carefully prepared, it has some limitations and shortcomings. First, this study started to collect data after only one year since the SFWIT became fully operational in the Cariri. It is too early for the investigation of the full potential of this mega-infrastructure on local level social capital, since processes of social transformation could last many years and have changes along the way depending on other technologies or policies that might converge to the region. However, this short-term evaluation on the impact of the Sao Francisco Inter-Basin Water Transfer can already reveal some negative and positive trends on local-level social capital and provide enough evidence and relevant information to better decision-making processes when planning and executing public policies to mitigate the impacts of drought, water scarcity, and climate change adaptation in the Cariri.

Also, this study acknowledges that, although the semiarid region of Brazil is characterized by very similar geological and hydrometeorological conditions, as well as social, economic, and cultural characteristics, there are some differences and nuances that should be considered when analyzing its vast territory. These variations can lead to different local strategies to deal with the social impacts of the SFIWT. Thus, to generalize the results found in the Cariri Paraibano to the whole semiarid region of Brazil, it would demand more samples from different municipalities impacted by the SFWIT. However, as stated before, I am confident that the results reported in this study can show some important trends and reveal social impacts and transformation processes that will be useful when analyzing other regions under the influence of the Sao Francisco Inter-Basin Water Transfer.

202 5.4 Future Research The objective of assessing the impact of the SFIWT in the social capital of the Cariri was achieved, but many relevant questions were raised along the process. In Chapter 4, the results were divided into three main categories: 1) Social structure, networks, and social capital; 2) Physical structure and social capital; and 3) Dimensions and variables of social capital. Each one of these categories opens new and exciting possibilities for future research. Regarding social structure and networks, it is important to deepen our knowledge on how we can improve and strengthen bridging and linking types of social capital in the context of the Cariri and even the whole semiarid region of Brazil. What kinds of activities and projects can contribute to the creation of new connections and what benefits it is bringing to the most vulnerable population to drought. The Living with the Semiarid project could be a good gateway for new researches, since it was identified in this study as the main source of bridging social capital in the region. Knowing how it is contributing to improve bridging social capital in the semiarid region of Brazil and how it translates to real actions to minimize the impact of drought would be a valuable knowledge to start changing local social structures and networks. Plus, a better understanding of why the Cariri is considered a more difficult region for social movement to flourish would also help in developing more contextualized programs and projects to mitigate drought and improve adaptation. In addition, the same methods used in this research could be applied in the Cariri after five or even ten years from now to compare short and long-term impacts of the SFIWT in local social structure and networks, as well as in other areas of influence of the SFIWT to understand how different the impacts are and why. These comparisons in time and space can be expanded to assess changes in local physical

203 structure and their influence on social capital too, like, for example, the new hotspots of tourism and the isolation of rural communities. The six dimensions of social capital and each one of their variables have shown great potentiality to be further explored in detail, especially focused on social groups in the extremes of the social pyramid. Most studies do not reach out to most vulnerable population to give them voice and show their perspective on local relationship with other groups and its benefits and disadvantages to drought mitigation strategies. The same can be said about the local elite. To date, no research was ever conducted with the local elite to show their perspective about water management, control, and distribution, as well as potential benefits and disadvantages in the relationship with other groups who depend on their water resources to survive and develop.

The SFWIT also present a multitude of possibilities to investigate its impact on agricultural production, economic activities, environmental depletion, soil moisture, social movements, and all other areas of social life that are being transformed by this mega-infrastructure. One interesting research would be the connection between environmental changes and social transformation, as for example, how the perenization of rivers affects riparian laws or local conflicts.

Plus, it is a great opportunity to understand the contradictions these kinds of interventions that are developed to mitigate drought but can also contribute to the intensification and incidence of drought and water scarcity at local, national, and regional levels. One good example is the impact of the SFIWT on environmental depletion and soil moisture decline, both well-known drivers of climate change and global drought intensification, which can be easily measured with accurate and free

204 satellite data. In summary, the SFIWT opens a new world for investigations on the multiple and complex interaction between human and natural processes that can lead to drought mitigation or intensification, and even both at the same time for different social groups.

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222 Appendix A

SURVEY – PORTUGUESE VERSION

Questionário Integrado para Medir o Capital Social DADOS DE IDENTIFICAÇÃO – Pré-Questionário Número do questionário:______

1. Sexo: 1. ☐ Masculino 2. ☐ Feminino

2. Idade:_____

3. Cidade:______

4. Nível de Escolaridade: 1. ☐ Analfabeto 2. ☐ Ensino Fundamental Incompleto 3. ☐ Ensino Fundamental Completo 4. ☐ Ensino Médio Incompleto 5. ☐ Ensino Médio Completo 6. ☐ Nível Superior Incompleto 7. ☐ Nível Superior Completo 8. ☐ Pós-graduação Incompleta 9. ☐ Pós-graduação Completa

5. Número total de pessoas na família: ______.

6. Renda da família (somando a renda de todos os que trabalham na família): 1. ☐ Menos de 1 salário mínimo (Menos de R$ 937,00) 2. ☐ 1 salário mínimo (R$ 937,00) 3. ☐ Entre 1 e 2 salários mínimos (R$ 937,00 a R$ 1.863,00) 4. ☐ Entre 2 e 3 salários mínimos (R$ 1.864,00 a R$ 2.811,00) 5. ☐ Acima de 3 salários mínimos (Acima de R$ 2.811,00)

7. Em que você trabalha atualmente? (Marque apenas uma resposta) 1. ☐ Na agricultura, no campo, na fazenda ou na pesca.

223 2. ☐ Na indústria. 3. ☐ Na construção civil. 4. ☐ No comércio, banco, transporte, hotelaria ou outros serviços. 5. ☐ Como funcionário do governo federal, estadual ou municipal. 6. ☐ Como profissional liberal, professora ou técnica de nível superior. 7. ☐ Trabalho fora de casa em atividades informais (pintor, eletricista, encanador, feirante, ambulante, etc.). 8. ☐ Trabalho em minha casa informalmente (costura, aulas particulares, cozinha, artesanato, carpintaria etc.). 9. ☐ Faço trabalho doméstico em casa de outras pessoas (cozinheiro/a, mordomo/governanta, jardineiro, babá, lavadeira, faxineiro/a, acompanhante de idosos/as etc.). 10. ☐ No lar (sem remuneração). 11. ☐ Outro. 12. ☐ Não trabalho.

8. Reside há quantos anos na comunidade: 1. ☐ 1 a 5 anos 2. ☐ 5 a 10 anos 3. ☐ Mais de 10 anos

Questionário – Capital Social A. Abastecimento de Água na Sua Localidade A.1. A sua casa é beneficiada diretamente com a água vinda da Transposição do Rio São Francisco? 1. ☐ Sim 2. ☐ Não 3. ☐ Não sei

A.2. ANTES da Transposição do Rio São Francisco, na maioria das vezes, o abastecimento de água na sua casa para o consumo familiar era feito através de: 1. ☐ Água encanada 2. ☐ Cisterna 3. ☐ Caminhão Pipa 4. ☐ Poço artesiano 5. ☐ Outro:______

224 A.3. Agora, DEPOIS da Transposição do Rio São Francisco, o abastecimento de água na sua casa para o consumo familiar é feito, na maioria das vezes, por: 1. ☐ Água encanada 2. ☐ Cisterna 3. ☐ Caminhão Pipa 4. ☐ Poço artesiano 5. ☐ Outro:______

A.4. ANTES da Transposição do São Francisco, você participou de alguma reunião ou atividade para decidir como as águas do Rio São Francisco serão administradas ou distribuídas? 1. ☐ Nunca 2. ☐ Uma vez 3. ☐ Algumas vezes (<5) 4. ☐ Muitas vezes (>5)

A.5. E DEPOIS da Transposição do São Francisco foi concluída, você participou de atividades para decidir como as águas do Rio São Francisco serão administradas ou distribuídas? 1. ☐ Nunca 2. ☐ Uma vez 3. ☐ Algumas vezes (<5) 4. ☐ Muitas vezes (>5)

A.6. Você notou alguma mudança na sua comunidade que possa estar relacionada à Transposição do Rio São Francisco? 1. ☐ Sim 2. ☐ Não

A.7. Caso a resposta tenha sido SIM, por favor, descreva em poucas palavras a principal mudança: (Ex: As pessoas estão mais felizes / Crescimento Econômico / Aumentou o desmatamento, e etc...) ______1. Grupos e Redes 1.1. Você participa ativamente de algum tipo de grupo, associação ou organização local? 1. ☐ Sim 2. ☐ Não

1.2. De quantos grupos diferentes você diria que participa:

225 1. ☐ Nenhum grupo 2. ☐ De apenas 1 grupo 3. ☐ De 2 a 4 grupos 4. ☐ Mais de 4 a 6 grupos 5. ☐ Mais de 6 grupos

1.3. De todos os grupos que você faz parte, qual é o mais importante para você? ______[Nome do grupo]

1.4. Qual é o maior benefício de se fazer parte deste grupo? (Escolha apenas 1 alternativa) 1. ☐ Melhora a renda atual do meu domicílio ou o acesso a serviços 2. ☐ É importante em situações de emergência 3. ☐ Beneficia a comunidade 4. ☐ Prazer/Diversão 5. ☐ Espiritual 6. ☐ Posição social 7. ☐ Autoestima 8. ☐ Outros (especifique) ______

1.5. Este grupo ou organização ajuda você a ter acesso a algum dos seguintes serviços? A. Educação ou treinamento 1.☐ SIM 2.☐ NÃO B. Serviços de saúde 1.☐ SIM 2.☐ NÃO C. Abastecimento de água ou saneamento 1.☐ SIM 2.☐ NÃO D. Crédito ou poupança 1.☐ SIM 2.☐ NÃO E. Insumos agrícolas ou tecnologia 1.☐ SIM 2.☐ NÃO F. Irrigação 1.☐ SIM 2.☐ NÃO G. Outros (especifique): ______1.6. Pensando nos membros deste grupo, a maioria deles é do(a) mesmo(a)... A. Bairro/localidade 1.☐ SIM 2.☐ NÃO B. Família ou grupo de parentesco 1.☐ SIM 2.☐ NÃO C. Religião 1.☐ SIM 2.☐ NÃO D. Idade 1.☐ SIM 2.☐ NÃO E. Classe social 1.☐ SIM 2.☐ NÃO

226

1.7. Os membros do grupo têm, em sua maioria, a mesma... A. Ocupação / Trabalho 1.☐ SIM 2.☐ NÃO B. Grau de escolaridade 1.☐ SIM 2.☐ NÃO C. Posição Política 1.☐ SIM 2.☐ NÃO

1.8. DEPOIS que foi concluída a Transposição do São Francisco, o tamanho do grupo/organização principal que você faz parte diminuiu, permaneceu o mesmo ou aumentou? 1. ☐ Diminuiu 2. ☐ Permaneceu o mesmo 3. ☐ Aumentou 4. ☐ Não sei

1.9. DEPOIS que foi concluída a Transposição do São Francisco, você diria que participa de mais ou menos grupos ou organizações? 1. ☐ Mais 2. ☐ Menos 3. ☐ Mesmo número

1.10. No período ANTES da Transposição do São Francisco, esse grupo/organização que você participa costumava trabalhar ou interagir com outros grupos que tinham objetivos parecidos? 1. ☐ Não 2. ☐ Sim, de vez em quando 3. ☐ Sim, frequentemente 4. ☐ Não sei

1.11. E DEPOIS da conclusão da Transposição do São Francisco, a interação com esses outros grupos diminuiu, aumentou, ou continuou a mesma? 1. ☐ Diminuiu 2. ☐ Aumentou 3. ☐ Continuou a mesma 4. ☐ Não sei

1.12. Quantos amigos próximos você diria que tem hoje? Essas pessoas são aquelas com quem se sente à vontade, para conversar a respeito de assuntos particulares, ou chamar quando precisa de ajuda. ______

227

1.13. Em comparação ao período ANTES da Transposição do São Francisco, você diria que: 1. ☐ Tem mais amigos 2. ☐ Tem menos amigos 3. ☐ Tem o mesmo número de amigos

1.14. Você já passou por períodos de seca ou estiagem, onde o abastecimento de água foi prejudicado ou interrompido? 1. ☐ Sim 2. ☐ Não

1.15. Durante estes períodos de seca e estiagem, ANTES da inauguração da Transposição do Rio São Francisco, quem mais te ajudava a ter acesso à água? 1. ☐ Família 2. ☐ Amigos 3. ☐ Vizinhos 4. ☐ Políticos ou Órgãos Públicos 5. ☐ Associações, ONGs, Organizações locais 6. ☐ Outra:______

1.16. E hoje em dia, caso haja problemas no abastecimento de água, com quem você mais pode contar para ter acesso à água para sua família? 1. ☐ Família 2. ☐ Amigos 3. ☐ Vizinhos 4. ☐ Políticos ou Órgãos Públicos 5. ☐ Associações, ONGs, Organizações locais 6. ☐ Não haverá mais problemas de abastecimento de água por causa da Transposição do Rio São Francisco 7. ☐ Outra:______

2. Confiança e Solidariedade 2.1. Em geral, você diria que ANTES da Transposição do Rio São Francisco, era possível confiar na maioria das pessoas da sua comunidade, ou que nunca era demais ter cuidado nas suas relações com outras pessoas? 1. ☐ Pode-se confiar na maioria das pessoas 2. ☐ Nunca era demais ter cuidado

228

2.2. E hoje em dia, DEPOIS que foi concluída a Transposição do Rio São Francisco, você acredita que o grau de confiança nas pessoas deste(a) bairro/localidade melhorou, piorou ou permaneceu mais ou menos o mesmo? 1. ☐ Melhorou 2. ☐ Piorou 3. ☐ Permaneceu mais ou menos o mesmo

2.3. Em geral, você concorda ou discorda das seguintes afirmações: A. ANTES da Transposição do São Francisco a maioria das pessoas neste bairro/localidade estava disposta a te ajudar caso você precisasse. 1. ☐ Concordo totalmente 2. ☐ Concordo em parte 3. ☐ Nem concordo, nem discordo 4. ☐ Discordo em parte 5. ☐ Discordo totalmente B. DEPOIS da Transposição do Rio São Francisco, a maioria das pessoas neste(a) bairro/localidade continua disposta a te ajudar caso você precise. 1. ☐ Concordo totalmente 2. ☐ Concordo em parte 3. ☐ Nem concordo, nem discordo 4. ☐ Discordo em parte 5. ☐ Discordo totalmente

2.4. No período ANTES de ser concluída a Transposição do São Francisco, o quanto você confiava no... A. Governo municipal 1. ☐ Confiava totalmente 2. ☐ Confiava muito 3. ☐ Nem muito, nem pouco 4. ☐ Confiava pouco 5. ☐ Confiava muito pouco B. Governo estadual 1. ☐ Confiava totalmente 2. ☐ Confiava muito 3. ☐ Nem muito, nem pouco 4. ☐ Confiava pouco 5. ☐ Confiava muito pouco

229 C. Governo Federal 1. ☐ Confiava totalmente 2. ☐ Confiava muito 3. ☐ Nem muito, nem pouco 4. ☐ Confiava pouco 5. ☐ Confiava muito pouco

2.5. DEPOIS que foi inaugurada a Transposição do São Francisco, o quanto você confia no... A. Governo municipal 1. ☐ Confio totalmente 2. ☐ Confio muito 3. ☐ Nem muito, nem pouco 4. ☐ Confio pouco 5. ☐ Confio muito pouco

B. Governo estadual 1. ☐ Confio totalmente 2. ☐ Confio muito 3. ☐ Nem muito, nem pouco 4. ☐ Confio pouco 5. ☐ Confio muito pouco C. Governo Federal 1. ☐ Confio totalmente 2. ☐ Confio muito 3. ☐ Nem muito, nem pouco 4. ☐ Confio pouco 5. ☐ Confio muito pouco

3. Ação Coletiva e Cooperação 3.1. Você alguma vez participou de atividades voluntárias na comunidade, ANTES da Transposição do Rio São Francisco, para realizar algum trabalho em benefício do seu bairro/localidade? 1. ☐ Sim 2. ☐ Não

3.2. E DEPOIS da inauguração da Transposição do Rio São Francisco, você participou de alguma atividade voluntária na comunidade em benefício do seu bairro/localidade? 1. ☐ Sim

230 2. ☐ Não 3.3. Quando havia um problema de abastecimento de água no seu bairro/localidade ANTES da Transposição do São Francisco, você costumava diminuir o seu consumo de água pensando no benefício de toda comunidade? 1. ☐ Sim 2. ☐ Não 3. ☐ Não sei

3.4. E agora, DEPOIS da Transposição do São Francisco, se houvesse um problema de abastecimento de água no seu bairro/localidade, você diminuiria o seu consumo de água em benefício de toda comunidade? 1. ☐ Sim 2. ☐ Não 3. ☐ Não sei

3.5. Você diria que a Transposição do Rio São Francisco colaborou para que você se envolvesse mais com questões importantes para o desenvolvimento da sua comunidade? 1. ☐ Sim 2. ☐ Não 3. ☐ Não sei

4. Informação e Comunicação 4.1. Em geral, em comparação ao período antes da Transposição do São Francisco, hoje você: 1. ☐ Escuta mais rádio 2. ☐ Escuta menos rádio 3. ☐ Não houve diferença

4.2. Em geral, em comparação ao período antes da Transposição do São Francisco, hoje você: 1. ☐ Vê mais TV 2. ☐ Vê menos TV 3. ☐ Não houve diferença

4.3. Em geral, em comparação ao período antes da Transposição do São Francisco, hoje você: 1. ☐ Acessa mais a internet 2. ☐ Acessa menos a internet 3. ☐ Não houve diferença

231

4.4. Em geral, em comparação ao período antes da Transposição do São Francisco, você diria que hoje em dia o acesso à informação melhorou, piorou ou permaneceu mais ou menos o mesmo? 1. ☐ Melhorou 2. ☐ Piorou 3. ☐ Permaneceu mais ou menos o mesmo

5. Coesão e Inclusão Social 5.1. Como você descreveria o grau de proximidade entre as pessoas do seu bairro ANTES da Transposição do Rio São Francisco? 1. ☐ Muito próximas 2. ☐ Próximas 3. ☐ Nem próximas nem distantes 4. ☐ Distantes 5. ☐ Muito distantes

5.2. E hoje em dia, DEPOIS da inauguração da Transposição do Rio São Francisco, como você descreveria o grau de proximidade entre as pessoas do seu bairro? 1. ☐ Muito próximas 2. ☐ Próximas 3. ☐ Nem próximas nem distantes 4. ☐ Distantes 5. ☐ Muito distantes

5.3. Muitas vezes há algumas diferenças entre as pessoas que vivem num mesmo bairro/localidade. Por exemplo, diferenças de renda, posição social, crenças religiosas, políticas, e etc... Até que ponto você diria que as pessoas do seu bairro/localidade são diferentes? 1. ☐ Muito diferentes 2. ☐ Diferentes 3. ☐ Pouco diferentes 4. ☐ Muito pouco diferentes

5.4. ANTES da Transposição do Rio São Francisco, havia no seu bairro famílias ou grupo de pessoas que tinham mais dificuldade no acesso à água do que a maioria das pessoas? 1. ☐ Sim 2. ☐ Não

232 3. ☐ Não sei

5.5. E agora, DEPOIS da Transposição do Rio São Francisco, estas famílias ou grupo de pessoas ainda continuam com mais dificuldade no acesso à água do que a maioria das pessoas do seu bairro/localidade? 1. ☐ Sim 2. ☐ Não 3. ☐ Não sei

5.6. No seu bairro/localidade, as pessoas têm acesso aos seguintes serviços? A. Educação/Escolas 1.☐ SIM 2. ☐ NÃO B. Serviços de Saúde/Clínicas 1.☐ SIM 2. ☐ NÃO C. Água 1.☐ SIM 2. ☐ NÃO D. Saneamento Básico (serviço de esgoto) 1.☐ SIM 2. ☐ NÃO E. Segurança Pública 1.☐ SIM 2. ☐ NÃO F. Transporte 1.☐ SIM 2. ☐ NÃO

5.7. Há alguma atividade comunitária da qual você se sente excluído ou não tem permissão para participar? 1. ☐ Sim 2. ☐ Não eu posso participar de todas as atividades vá para a questão 5.12.

5.8. De quais atividades você não tem permissão para participar? [ENTREVISTADOR: ENUMERE ATÉ 3 ATIVIDADES] A. B. C.

5.9. Por que você não tem permissão para participar? 1. ☐ Pobreza 2. ☐ Ocupação 3. ☐ Falta de escolaridade 4. ☐ Por ser homem ou por ser mulher 5. ☐ Idade 6. ☐ Religião 7. ☐ Filiação política 8. ☐ Etnia ou língua/raça/casta/tribo 9. ☐ Outros (especifique ______)

233

5.10. Na sua opinião, esse bairro é geralmente pacífico ou marcado pela violência? 1. ☐ Muito violento 2. ☐ Violento 3. ☐ Nem pacífico nem violento 4. ☐ Pacífico 5. ☐ Muito pacífico

5.11. Em comparação ao período ANTES da Transposição do São Francisco, hoje em dia o grau de violência nesse bairro aumentou, diminuiu ou permaneceu mais ou menos o mesmo? 1. ☐ Aumentou muito 2. ☐ Aumentou um pouco 3. ☐ Permaneceu mais ou menos o mesmo 4. ☐ Diminuiu um pouco 5. ☐ Diminuiu muito

6. Bem-estar Social e Individual 6.1. Em geral, você se considera uma pessoa: 1. ☐ Muito feliz 2. ☐ Feliz 3. ☐ Nem feliz, nem infeliz 4. ☐ Infeliz 5. ☐ Muito infeliz

6.2. Em comparação ao período ANTES da Transposição do São Francisco, hoje em dia você se considera uma pessoa: 1. ☐ Mais Feliz 2. ☐ Menos Feliz 3. ☐ Não houve alteração em relação a minha felicidade

6.3. Em comparação ao período ANTES da Transposição do São Francisco, hoje em dia você se considera: 1. ☐ Uma pessoa mais ativa na comunidade 2. ☐ Uma pessoa menos ativa na comunidade 3. ☐ Não houve alteração em relação as minhas atividades na comunidade

234

6.4. Você acredita que a Transposição do Rio São Francisco vai resolver de uma vez por todas os problemas relacionados à falta de água? 1. ☐ Sim 2. ☐ Não 3. ☐ Não sei

235 Appendix B

SURVEY – ENGLISH VERSION

PRE-QUESTIONNAIRE Questionnaire number: ______1. Sex: 1. ☐ Male 2. ☐ Female

2. Age: _____

3. City: ______

4. Level of Education: 1. ☐ Illiterate 2. ☐ Incomplete Elementary School 3. ☐ Complete Elementary Education 4. ☐ High School Incomplete 5. ☐ Completed High School 6. ☐ Incomplete Undergraduate Course 7. ☐ Complete Undergraduate Course 8. ☐ Incomplete Graduate Course 9. ☐ Complete Graduate Course

5. Total number of people in the family: ______.

6. Family income (adding the income of all family members): 1. ☐ Less than 1 minimum wage (less than R$ 937,00) 2. ☐ 1 minimum wage (R$ 937,00) 3. ☐ From 1 to 2 minimum wages (R$ 937,00 a R$ 1.863,00) 4. ☐ From 2 to 3 minimum wages (R$ 1.864,00 a R$ 2.811,00) 5. ☐ Above 3 minimum wages (over R$ 2.811,00)

7. What are you currently working on? (Mark only one answer) 1. ☐ In agriculture, in the farm or fishing. 2. ☐ In industry.

236 3. ☐ In construction. 4. ☐ In commerce, bank, transportation, hotels or other services. 5. ☐ As an employee of the federal, state or municipal government. 6. ☐ As a liberal professional, teacher or top-level technician. 7. ☐ Work in outdoor informal activities (painter, electrician, plumber, shopkeeper, etc.). 8. ☐ Work in indoor informal activities (sewing, private lessons, cooking, handicrafts, etc.) 9. ☐ I do housework at other people's homes (cook, butler/housekeeper, gardener, etc.). 10. ☐ At home (without remuneration). 11. ☐ Other. 12. ☐ Do not work.

8. For how long you have resided here: 1. ☐ 1 to 5 years 2. ☐ 5 to 10 years 3. ☐ More than 10 years

Social Capital - Questionnaire A. Local Water Supply A.1. Is your house being directly benefitted by the SFIWT? 1. ☐ Yes 2. ☐ No 3. ☐ I do not know

A.2. BEFORE the SFIWT, most of the time, the water supply in your home for family consumption was done through: 1. ☐ Piped water 2. ☐ Cistern 3. ☐ Truck Pipe 4. ☐ Artesian well 5. ☐ Other: ______

A.3. Now, AFTER the SFIWT, the supply of water in your home for family consumption is done, most of the time, by: 1. ☐ Piped water 2. ☐ Cistern 3. ☐ Truck Pipe 4. ☐ Artesian well

237 5. ☐ Other: ______

A.4. BEFORE the SFIWT, did you participate in any meeting or activity to decide how water from the São Francisco River would be administered or distributed? 1. ☐ Never 2. ☐ Once 3. ☐ Sometimes (<5) 4. ☐ Often (> 5)

A.5. AFTER the SFIWT has been completed, have you participated in activities to decide how waters from the São Francisco River will be administered or distributed? 1. ☐ Never 2. ☐ Once 3. ☐ Sometimes (<5) 4. ☐ Often (> 5)

A.6. Have you noticed any changes in your community that may be related to the SFIWT? 1. ☐ Yes 2. ☐ No

A.7. If the answer was YES, please describe in a few words the main change: (Ex: People are happier / Economic Growth / Deforestation increased, etc.) ______

1. Groups and Networks

1.1. Do you actively participate in any type of group, association or local organization? 1. ☐ Yes 2. ☐ No

1.2. From how many different groups would you say that participates: 1. ☐ No group 2. ☐ Only 1 group 3. ☐ From 2 to 4 groups 4. ☐ More than 4 to 6 groups 5. ☐ More than 6 groups

238 1.3. Of all the groups that you are part of, which one is most important to you? ______[Group's name]

1.4. What is the main benefit from joining this group (the most important group to you)? 1. ☐ Improves my household’s current livelihood or access to services 2. ☐ Important in times of emergency/in future 3. ☐ Benefits the community 4. ☐ Enjoyment/Recreation 5. ☐ Spiritual, 6. ☐ Social status, 7. ☐ Self-esteem 8. ☐ Other (specify) ______

1.5. Does this group help your household get access to any of the following services? A. Education or Training 1.☐ YES 2.☐ NO B. Health services 1.☐ YES 2.☐ NO

C. Water supply or sanitation 1.☐ YES 2.☐ NO D. Credit or Savings 1.☐ YES 2.☐ NO E. Agricultural input or technology 1.☐ YES 2.☐ NO F. Irrigation 1.☐ YES 2.☐ NO G. Others (specify): ______

239 1.6. Thinking about the members of this group, are most of them of the same… A. Neighborhood/Village 1.☐ YES 2.☐ NO B. Family or Kin group 1.☐ YES 2.☐ NO C. Religion 1.☐ YES 2.☐ NO D. Age 1.☐ YES 2.☐ NO

E. Social class 1.☐ YES 2.☐ NO

1.7. Do members mostly have the same… A. Occupation 1.☒ YES 2.☐ NO B. Educational background or level 1.☐ YES 2.☐ NO C. Political View Point 1.☐ YES 2.☐ NO

1.8. In the period AFTER the SFIWT, has membership in the group declined, remained the same, or increased? 1. ☐ Declined 2. ☐ Remained same 3. ☐ Increased 4. ☐ I don’t know

1.9. AFTER the SFIWT was completed, would you say that you participate in more or less groups or organizations? 1. ☐ More 2. ☐ Less 3. ☐ Same number

1.10. BEFORE the SFIWT, did this group work use to interact with other groups in the village/neighborhood? 1. ☐ No 2. ☐ Yes, occasionally 3. ☐ Yes, frequently 4. ☐ I don’t know

240 1.11. What about the period AFTER the SFIWT, does the interaction with other groups declined, remained the same, or increased? 1. ☐ Declined 2. ☐ Remained same 3. ☐ Increased 4. ☐ I don’t know

1.12. About how many close friends do you have these days? These are people you feel at ease with, can talk to about private matters, or call on for help.

1.13. In comparison with the period BEFORE the SFIWT, would you say that: 1. ☐ You have more friends 2. ☐ You have less friends 3. ☐ You have the same number of friends

1.14. Have you been through periods of drought where the water supply was insufficient or stopped? 1. ☐ Yes 2. ☐ No

1.15. During these periods of drought, BEFORE the inauguration of the São Francisco River diversion, who else would help you access the water? 1. ☐ Family 2. ☐ Friends 3. ☐ Neighbors 4. ☐ Political or Public Organs 5. ☐ Associations, NGOs, local organizations 6. ☐ Other: ______

1.16. And nowadays, in case there are problems in the water supply, who can you count on to have access to water for your family? 1. ☐ Family 2. ☐ Friends 3. ☐ Neighbors 4. ☐ Political or Public Organs 5. ☐ Associations, NGOs, Local organizations 6. ☐ There will be no further water supply problems because of the São Francisco River Transposition 7. ☐ Other: ______

241 2.Trust and Solidarity 2.1 Generally speaking, would you say that BEFORE the SFIWT most people could be trusted, or that you couldn’t be too careful in your dealings with other people? 1. ☐ Most people could be trusted 2. ☐ You couldn’t be too careful

2.2. Do you think that in the period AFTER the SFIWT, the level of trust in this village/neighborhood has gotten better, worse, or stayed about the same? 1. ☐ Gotten better 2. ☐ Gotten worse 3. ☐ Stayed about the same

2.3. In general, do you agree or disagree with the following statements? A. BEFORE the SFIWT most people in this village / neighborhood were willing to help if you need it. 1. ☐ Agree strongly 2. ☐ Agree somewhat 3. ☐ Neither agree or disagree 4. ☐ Disagree somewhat 5. ☐ Disagree strongly B. AFTER the SFIWT, most people in this village / neighborhood are willing to help if you need it. 1. ☐ Agree strongly 2. ☐ Agree somewhat 3. ☐ Neither agree or disagree 4. ☐ Disagree somewhat 5. ☐ Disagree strongly

2.4. Before the Sao Francisco diversion, how much did you trust… A. Municipal government officials 1. ☐ To a very great extent 2. ☐ To a great extent 3. ☐ Neither great nor small extent 4. ☐ To a small extent 5. ☐ To a very small extent B. State government officials 1. ☐ To a very great extent 2. ☐ To a great extent

242 3. ☐ Neither great nor small extent 4. ☐ To a small extent 5. ☐ To a very small extent C. Federal government officials 1. ☐ To a very great extent 2. ☐ To a great extent 3. ☐ Neither great nor small extent 4. ☐ To a small extent 5. ☐ To a very small extent

2.5. After the inauguration of the Sao Francisco diversion, how much do you trust A. Municipal government officials 1. ☐ To a very great extent 2. ☐ To a great extent 3. ☐ Neither great nor small extent 4. ☐ To a small extent 5. ☐ To a very small extent B. State government officials 1. ☐ To a very great extent 2. ☐ To a great extent 3. ☐ Neither great nor small extent 4. ☐ To a small extent 5. ☐ To a very small extent C. Federal government officials 1. ☐ To a very great extent 2. ☐ To a great extent 3. ☐ Neither great nor small extent 4. ☐ To a small extent 5. ☐ To a very small extent

3. Collective Action and Cooperation 3.1. BEFORE the SFIWT, did you participate in any voluntary communal activities, in which people came together to do some work for the benefit of the community? 1. ☐ Yes 2. ☐ No

243 3.2. After the SFIWT, would you still participate in any voluntary community activity these days, to do some work for the benefit of the community? 1. ☐ Yes 2. ☐ No

3.3. When there was a water supply problem in this community BEFORE the SFIWT, did you save water in your daily activities for the benefit of the community? 1. ☐Yes 2. ☐ No 3. ☐ I don’t know

3.4. If there is a water supply problem in this community these days, AFTER the SFIWT, would you save water in your daily activities for the benefit of the community? 1. ☐ Yes 2. ☐ No 3. ☐ I don’t know

3.5. Would you say that the SFIWT helped you get more involved with issues important to the development of your community? 1. ☐ Yes 2. ☐ No 3. ☐ I don’t know

4. Information and Communication 4.1. In general, compared to the period BEFORE the SFIWT, today you: 1. ☐ Listen more to radio 2. ☐ Listen less to radio 3. ☐ There was no difference

4.2. In general, compared to the period BEFORE the SFIWT, today you: 1. ☐ Watch more TV 2. ☐ Watch less TV 3. ☐ There was no difference

4.3. In general, compared to the period before the SFIWT, today you: 1. ☐ Use more the internet 2. ☐ Use less the internet 3. ☐ Use of the internet remains the same

244 4.4. In general, compared to the period BEFORE the SFIWT, has access to information improved, deteriorated, or stayed about the same? 1. ☐ Improved 2. ☐ Deteriorated 3. ☐ Stayed about the same

5. Social Cohesion and Inclusion 5.1. How strong was the feeling of togetherness or closeness in your village / neighborhood BEFORE the SFIWT? Use a five-point scale where 1 means feeling very distant and 5 means feeling very close. 1. ☐ Very distant 2. ☐ Somewhat distant 3. ☐ Neither distant nor close 4. ☐ Somewhat close 5. ☐ Very close

5.2. How strong is the feeling of togetherness or closeness in your village/neighborhood right now? Use a five-point scale where 1 means feeling very distant and 5 means feeling very close. 1. ☐ Very distant 2. ☐ Somewhat distant 3. ☐ Neither distant nor close 4. ☐ Somewhat close 5. ☐ Very close

5.3. There are often differences in characteristics between people living in the same village/neighborhood. For example, differences in wealth, income, social status, ethnic background, race, caste, or tribe. There can also be differences in religious or political beliefs, or there can be differences due to age or sex. To what extent do any such differences characterize your village/neighborhood? 1. ☐ To a very great extent 2. ☐ To a great extent 3. ☐ Neither great nor small extent 4. ☐ To a small extent 5. ☐ To a very small extent

5.4. BEFORE the SFIWT, were there families or groups of people in your neighborhood who had more difficulty accessing water than most people? 1. ☐ Yes 2. ☐ No

245 3. ☐ I do not know

5.5. And now, AFTER the SFIWT, do these families or groups of people still have more difficulty accessing water than most people in their neighborhood? 1. ☐ Yes 2. ☐ No 3. ☐ I do not know

5.6. In your neighborhood, do people have access to the following services? A. Education/Schools 1.☐ SIM 2. ☐ NÃO B. Health services/Clinics 1.☐ SIM 2. ☐ NÃo C. Water 1.☐ SIM 2. ☐ NÃo D. Sewer services 1.☐ SIM 2. ☐ NÃo E. Public Security 1.☐ SIM 2. ☐ NÃo F. Transportation 1.☐ SIM 2. ☐ NÃo

5.7. Are there any community activities that you feel excluded or are not allowed to attend? 1. ☐ Yes 2. ☐ No, I can participate in all activities → skip to question 5.10.

5.8. What activities are you not allowed to participate in? A. B. C.

5.9. Why are you not allowed to participate? [ENUMERATOR: LIST UP TO 2 REASONS] 1. ☐ Poverty 2. ☐ Occupation 3. ☐ Lack of education 4. ☐ Gender 5. ☐ Age 6. ☐ Religion 7. ☐ Political affiliation 8. ☐ Ethnicity or language spoken/race/caste/tribe 9. ☐ Other (specify ______)

246 5.10. In your opinion, is this village/neighborhood generally peaceful or marked by violence? 1. ☐ Very peaceful 2. ☐ Moderately peaceful 3. ☐ Neither peaceful nor violent 4. ☐ Moderately violent 5. ☐ Very violent

5.11. Compared to the period BEFORE the SFIWT, has the level of violence in this village/neighborhood increased, decreased, or stayed the same? 1. ☐ Increased a lot 2. ☐ Increased a little 3. ☐ Stayed about the same 4. ☐ Decreased a little 5. ☐ Decreased a lot

6. Empowerment and Political Action 6.1 In general, how happy do you consider yourself to be: 1. ☐ Very happy 2. ☐ Moderately happy 3. ☐ Neither happy nor unhappy 4. ☐ Moderately unhappy 5. ☐ Very unhappy

6.2. Today, in comparison to the period BEFORE the SFIWT, you consider yourself a person: 1. ☐ Happier 2. ☐ Less Happy 3. ☐ There was no change in relation to my happiness

6.3. In comparison to the period BEFORE the SFIWT, today you consider yourself: 1. ☐ A more active person in the community 2. ☐ A less active person in the community 3. ☐ There was no change from my community activities

247 6.4. Do you believe that the SFIWT will solve once and for all the problems related to lack of water? 1. ☐ Yes 2. ☐ No 3. ☐ I do not know

248 Appendix C

INTERVIEW GUIDE

Purpose of the interview: The objective of this interview is to capture the interviewee’s perception on local-level social relationships and networks, and how the SFIWT may have affected the local distribution of social capital, and people’s involvement in informal networks and formal civic organizations. These interviews will be made with community leaders, managers of local-level NGOs, and government representatives, and will also explore the role of state, legal institutions, and informal networks in facilitating or undermining civic involvement in drought mitigation actions in the Cariri region before and after the SFIWT. This interview is an adaptation of the World Bank’s (2006) “Analyzing Social Capital in Context - A Guide to Using Qualitative Methods and Data” considering the purpose of this research and the social, cultural, economic, and environmental characteristics of the Cariri region, where the interviews will take place. Background information

1. Name:

2. Age:

3. What is the name of the organization you are affiliated with?

4. What is your position or role within that organization?

5. How long have you been working with this organization in the Cariri region?

6. What is the main purpose of your organization?

249 1. Groups and Networks

- Which formal or informal groups are part of your organization? Please describe a variety of roles within groups or networks.

- What leads people to become members of your organization? How many people are in your organization?

- Has there been any change in the membership of your organization since the SFIWT? Has there been a change in terms of participation in your organization since the SFIWT?

- Did you notice a change in the leadership of the group and the composition of your organization's network after the SFIWT? If so, can you describe these changes? Can these changes be attributed exclusively to SFIWT?

- Does your organization work or collaborate with other public or private organizations? Who are your main partners? How is this interaction?

- Is there a relationship change with other organizations or with the government after a San Francisco transposition?

- Did you notice any change on people’s daily life after the SFIWT? Any change regarding networks or groups that people typically rely on to resolve issues of daily life?

- Who are the most socially or economically isolated groups of the region? What is the main difficulty to integrate those groups in the social life of the community? Was there any change in relation to these groups after the SFIWT? The community context: availability and accessibility of resources and services

- What are the main resources (including natural resources, cultural and recreational facilities, markets, communications infrastructure, etc.) available in the community? How is access to these resources distributed among families and groups?

- How is access to San Francisco water distributed among families and groups? Which groups do not have access to transposition waters? What reason? Which groups lead the discussions on transposition water management?

250 2. Collective Action and Cooperation

- What do people consider the most pressing problems in the community?

- How do they rank them in terms of importance?

- To what extent do members of the community collaborate with each other to solve these problems?

- Is your organization involved in any collective action and local cooperation to address these issues?

- Is there any cultural, social or historical factor that affects mutual assistance, cooperation or collective action?

- How do national, regional, and / or local governance standards affect collective action (are they organizational constraints or do they require informal support when public funds are inadequate, such as school maintenance)?

- Were there collective actions directly related to the transposition of the São Francisco River? Could you describe or give examples of collective actions related to the SFIWT that have occurred in the community (or a community segment). What were the outcomes of these activities? Was your organization involved? If so, how? What was the role of your organization?

- Who initiated the activities? How were people mobilized?

- Do you consider that there has been any change in how people in this community help each other, cooperate, and mobilize social actions and resources associated with the SFIWT?

- Was there any change in social groups after the SFIWT?

- Are there any groups, neighborhoods and / or families that cooperate more with each other? If yes, why? Are there any groups, neighborhoods and / or families that are excluded from collective activities and, if so, why?

- What are the social sanctions for violating the expected norms of collective action in the community?

251 3. Social Cohesion and Inclusion

- Do poor or marginalized groups experience greater obstacles in accessing the water resources of the SFIWT?

- Are there disagreements or even recurrent conflicts between different people and groups about how the SFIWT water resources should be used and distributed? And within your organization? And in the community?

- What community patterns of differentiation and exclusion exist with respect to opportunities, markets, information, and services?

- Was there any kind of social change in how people cooperate and act together after transposition? Could you describe these changes?

- What are the risks of social discrimination among beneficiaries of social or municipal services? What socioeconomic, political, or religious factors are at work in this discrimination?

- What prevents your organization's services and expenses from reaching the poorest and most vulnerable groups? Are the reasons related to ethnicity, gender, a political agenda or geographical isolation?

- What are the patterns of inclusion and / or exclusion in political participation? Has any conflict erupted into violence?

- Can you identify any conflicts that may have occurred in the community because of the SFIWT? Do you think the SFIWT has triggered any kind of conflict?

- If so, who are the main actors involved in such conflicts? What is the frequency, intensity, and duration of localized conflicts?

- What kinds of mediation have taken place to help the community resolve conflicts? Have these worked? Why? For how long?

- What kinds of retribution are common?

- What forms of justice are generally accepted?

252 4. Expectation x Reality

- What was the main expectation of the community regarding the SFIWT?

- What expectations have come true?

- What expectations have been frustrated?

- How did the different social groups mentioned above behave in the face of frustration?

- Do you think that the expectations and the frustrations related to the SFIWT contributed in some way to the change of posture of some groups? If so, which groups? Could you describe these changes?

- In your opinion, what are the main social changes related to SFIWT in the Cariri region? Concluding Question Is there anything else you think is important for me in understanding the social impacts of the SFIWT here in the Cariri region?

253 Appendix D

APPLICATION GUIDE FOR THE SURVEY – Portuguese version

GUIA DE APLICAÇÃO DO QUESTIONÁRIO INTEGRADO PARA

MEDIR O CAPITAL SOCIAL

Caro(a) Agente Comunitário(a) de Saúde, Primeiramente, muito obrigado por fazer parte desta pesquisa! Ao aplicar o Questionário Integrado para Medir o Capital Social da região do Cariri Ocidental, você estará contribuindo para um melhor entendimento dos impactos sociais da

Transposição do Rio São Francisco em sua região. Meu nome é Flavio Ribeiro, sou pesquisador do Centro de Pesquisa em Desastres, da Universidade de Delaware, nos Estados Unidos. Esta pesquisa é parte da minha tese de doutorado em Ciência e Gestão de Desastres e conta com o apoio da Universidade Federal de Campina Grande (UFCG). Tem como objetivo identificar possíveis mudanças no capital social da região do Cariri, ou seja, na relação das pessoas com sua comunidade, organizações locais, e com o governo, assim como os recursos que circulam e podem ser acessados através destas relações. Esta informação é importante para monitorar os impactos da Transposição do São Francisco e contribuir com uma comunidade mais resiliente à seca. Este pequeno guia oferece orientações gerais sobre a aplicação deste questionário que você tem em mãos. Estarei à disposição caso haja qualquer dúvida.

Obrigado novamente!

254

Flavio Lopes Ribeiro Doutorando em Ciência e Gestão de Desastres Disaster Research Center University of Delaware

Tel.: (83) 98803-8161 Email: [email protected]

COMO SELECIONAR OS PARTICIPANTES Os participantes devem ser selecionados ao acaso. Sugiro que o questionário seja aplicado a cada 10 casas visitadas. No entanto, você poderá escolher um número que seja mais adequado à sua região, como por exemplo 1 questionário a cada 5 ou 7 casas visitadas. De qualquer forma, você terá que informar qual o critério utilizado para a aplicação aleatória dos questionários. Fique muito à vontade para me ligar ou enviar um e-mail para conversarmos sobre as diversas formas de aplicação aleatória dos questionários.

QUEM PARTICIPA DA PESQUISA

Só poderão responder aos questionários maiores de 18 anos, que estejam morando na região há mais de 3 anos.

COMO APLICAR O QUESTIONÁRIO Este questionário é muito simples de aplicar. Basta seguir estes passos:

255 1) Antes de aplicar o questionário, leia para o participante o Termo de Consentimento Livre e Esclarecido. 2) Entregue ao participante uma via do Termo de Consentimento Livre e Esclarecido. 3) Pergunte se há alguma dúvida sobre a pesquisa ou sobre o questionário.

Caso haja alguma dúvida, por favor, esclareça a dúvida do participante ou me ligue para que eu possa esclarece-la. Tel. (83) 98803-8161. 4) Após todos os esclarecimentos, leia calmamente todas as perguntas e respostas para os participantes. Marque nos questionários as respostas dos participantes. Repita as perguntas e as opções de resposta quantas vezes forem necessárias para que os participantes entendam as perguntas e escolham as melhores respostas.

5) Ao completar o questionário, certifique-se de que TODAS as perguntas foram respondidas. Caso alguma pergunta tenha sido deixada em branco, avise o participante e peça para que ele responda à pergunta. Se o participante se recusar a responder, tudo bem, é direito dele, e a pergunta poderá ficar em branco. Por favor, não insista. 6) Agradeça o participante e reforce que em caso de dúvidas ele ou ela

poderá entrar em contato comigo (Pesquisador Responsável). Muito obrigado novamente!

256 Appendix E

IRB/HUMAN SUBJECTS APPROVAL

257