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São Rafael; Small town; Açu Valley; Baixo Açu Project.
Abstract In 1975, the Federal Executive of Brazil published an expropriation decree that declared an extensive area of land in the Vale do Açu, a microregion of Rio Grande do Norte, to be of public utility. The measure aimed at implementing the Baixo Açu Project, which would establish technical rationality in local agricultural production. In order to meet the project's water demand, the technicians pointed out the need to build a large dam. In addition to other important impacts, the Armando Ribeiro Gonçalves dam, as it was called, would flood the entire urban center of the municipality of São Rafael, in addition to some rural population centers in this and other municipalities. Studies regarding the irrigation of the valley had been developed since the previous decade, but it was in 1972 that the first news appeared alluding to the project and construction of the Açu Dam. This process implied temporal shifts that we intend to analyze throughout this thesis. From the process involving the implementation of the project, we intend to analyze the phenomenon of flooding, in conjunction with other aspects that cross it, in order to reflect on the impact that the project caused on the small riverside town, not only after the move, but since the first announcements of the flood. For this, we will mobilize various sources, especially technical reports, in which the official vision of the project is defined, the press, which reproduces and opines about official information, and the oral reports of resettled residents, the subjects directly affected by the dam. We defined our time frame between 1972, when the first advertisements appeared, and 1983, when the change occurred. In this interval, a wait is established, but not an absolute paralysis. We intend, therefore, to reflect on the temporal movements resulting from this public intervention of great proportions.