Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: JOAO GABRIEL BATISTA DE LIMA

Uma banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO de DOUTORADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
STUDENT : JOAO GABRIEL BATISTA DE LIMA
DATE: 07/10/2026
TIME: 07:00
LOCAL: Sala virtual
TITLE:

EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TOURISM, NEOLIBERALISM AND REGIMES OF TRUTH BY APPLYING TECHNIQUES OF FUTURING TOWARDS THE REQUALIFICATION OF THE POTENGI RIVER (BR)

KEY WORDS:

Socio-environmental conflicts; Local development; Vulnerabilities; Viabilities; Utopia.

PAGES: 96
BIG AREA: Ciências Sociais Aplicadas
AREA: Turismo
SUMMARY:

We live in a society ravaged by environmental crises as a result of a neoliberal perspective that aims for consumerism at any cost, affecting humanity, cities, urban rivers, tourism, and the future, leading people to feel overwhelmed by fear and anxiety. In this sense, this thesis argues that people often support policies without being aware of their future consequences, leading them to endorse projects that have negative consequences for their lives, as part of a neoliberal strategy to advance its own exclusionary hegemonic interests through regimes of truth. This thesis also argues that the neoliberal perspective attempts to co-opt alternative discourses to promote its consumerist interests. To this end, the revitalisation of the Potengi River estuary and its tributaries, situated in Natal, Brazil, is considered a critical opportunity to analyse this phenomenon and its relationship with tourism planning, as the river’s revitalisation has been discussed in the context of a review of the city’s basic sanitation policy, the governmentality of the Potengi River Hydrographic Region Committee, the meetings of the Potengi Forum, and existing plans for tourism in the area. Based on this understanding, this thesis project aims to explore how techniques of futuring shed light on practices of tourism planning and their relationship with urban rivers, as influenced by discursive dynamics dominated by neoliberalism in the context of the revitalisation of the Potengi River estuary. To achieve this objective, the proposed methodology combines the competing rationalities approach and the techniques of futuring approach, aiming to identify what futures people imagine for themselves and the case, and how power relations influence this process, thereby promoting a clearer understanding of the political processes through a discursive and dramaturgical analysis, as well as the analysis of the visions of the future that political actors hold. Preliminary findings from documentary research, observation, and interviews with community leaders point to the existence of catastrophic and hopeful discourses regarding the future of the Potengi River, alongside plans for tourism focused exclusively on its economic dimension, which in turn has been rejected by critical approaches to tourism due to its unsustainable nature. It is expected that, as the research progresses, observations of meetings focusing on decisions relating to the river and the documentary review will continue; netnography will be applied within the community; interviews will be conducted with the communities living along its banks, government agencies responsible for environmental management, water and sanitation, and urban planning in the area, experts on the Potengi River's history, basic sanitation, and local Indigenous cosmovisions, as well as the Public Prosecutor’s Office; and, in addition, workshops will be conducted with children and the elderly from the communities living along the riverbanks. In an attempt to inform the public about the consequences of the requalification process for their future, the information collected is intended to support a photographic exhibition to project the identified plans for the future of the Potengi River, allowing participants to discuss the desirable future for the river in a more balanced way, resulting in an agenda to make it feasible, based on the premise that the river’s revitalisation is not impossible, but rather an untested feasibility.

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
Externa à Instituição - FREYA HIGGINS-DESBIOLLES
Interna - 1543979 - ANDREA VIRGINIA SOUSA DANTAS
Interno - 3142757 - GUILHERME BRIDI
Presidente - 2578221 - MOZART FAZITO REZENDE FILHO