A CIDADE E SUAS MARGENS: MEMÓRIA E PRÁTICAS DA ÁGUA NA BACIA DO UNA EM BELÉM (PA).

Water has a sensitive role in shaping both urban landscape and social life in Belem. In contrast, Belem's urban history is dominated by discourses and public policies responsible for creating an antinomy between city and water. This denial of the relationship with water unfolds, in part, interventions over city lowlands which were historically habitated by poor migrants from the countryside or other states. This article focuses on everyday practices related to water from inhabitants of the areas known as baixadas after the conclusion of a massive urban development program in the Una River Basin. Data was built through ethnographic research specially walks along the river basin channel, participant observation, interviews, and informal conversations with residents from areas affected by the Una River Basin Project. The relationship of these residents with hydric landscapes is altered by urbanization, but last in time through memory, since water articulates with their collective and individual trajectories. Thus, Belem's river margins must be considered not only as objects of intervention, but also as spaces of sociability in which everyday practices informed by memory reshape the public policies on water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]