Artisanal and small-scale mining has been carried out in the Tapajós region for at least
seven decades. As a result of this sector, there has been a complex process of human
occupation consolidated in a network of communities oriented around the gold
economy. Historical problems of conflicts with indigenous populations, mercury
pollution, illegal mining, environmental pollution and precarious work have become
adjectives for gold mining in the region, which is a contradiction to the financial values
mobilized annually by this economy. The central aim of this thesis is to analyze how the
production models of gold mining in the Tapajós region are currently structured, with
the consolidation of the use of backhoe technology and automated dredges in the gold
mining process. It also looks at how working relationships and conditions are developed
in the region's gold mines, seeking to understand the technical knowledge, trajectories
and migratory flows of the workers. This is an anthropological study, based on the
methodological resources of ethnography, with participant observation, photography,
field notes and in-depth interviews with fifty workers at different stages of the gold
production chain. As a result, we observed profound transformations in the structures of
gold mining over the years and a significant change in the level of capital investment
and the application of mechanization in gold mines. It is understood that this movement
has been driven by the growing value of gold on the international market, and as a
consequence has increased the capacity to generate impacts on the environment, as large
areas and deeper levels of soil are mined without the control of public bodies. With
regard to the workers, it can be seen that the labor force working in the garimpo is made
up of migrants, with a predominance of workers from various cities in the state of
Maranhão. It can be seen that the informality and illegality of the activity in the region
makes gold workers vulnerable, and at any sign of crisis in the sector, illness or old age,
they immediately suffer the economic and social impacts.
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