Agentes, agenda e território à luz dos regimes urbanos: expansão do porto de Natal e reassentamento da comunidade do Maruim

Abstract

The research focuses on the restructuring of urban port areas and social housing, focusing on the power relations established in a disputed territory. Thus, in an empirical way, the case of the Port of Natal is presented, which - for decades - disputed a fraction of the territory historically constituted by the Maruim community, on the edges of the Potengi River, resulting in the resettlement of this community for the residential São Pedro, in 2016. This research is linked to the project " Caracterização dos Regimes Urbanos das Metrópoles Brasileiras", developed by the INCT Observatório das Metrópoles, through the program "As Metrópoles e o Direito à Cidade: conhecimento, inovação e ação para o desenvolvimento urbano - 2015-2020”. Thus, based on the theoretical-conceptual framework discussed by the group that makes up the RMNatal Nucleus of the Observatório das Metrópoles, the idea of Urban Regimes is presented here as the analysis part of this research, revealing possibilities of action of the affected population and some degree of articulation or modifying arrangement of the final process of dispute of said territory. It is considered as object of study the actions of the groups that led the project of expansion of the port of Natal and the resettlement of the Maruim community and, in this sense, the general objective is to understand the different strategies of these pressure groups that led the port expansion project and the resettlement of Maruim aiming to characterize the coalition formed based on the agents involved and the practices of physical-territorial restructuring put to the historical and port area of the district of Ribeira. This research is characterized as a qualitative study and uses as a method the case study of the single type as a research strategy. For this, as a study universe, the experience of the community of Maruim and the Port of Natal was delimited in the period between 1997 (beginning of requests for regularization of areas of interest of the Port of Natal by the Companhia Docas do Rio Grande do Norte) and 2016 (when the resettlement of the community of Maruim occurs to the residential São Pedro, located in the district Ribeira, Natal/RN).The results obtained indicate the existence of power groups, able to articulate informally, using their strategies and tools based on their resources and interests, making it possible to read a coalition where State agentes, when dealing with agents with pro-market interests, were relevant actors in resolving the conflict.