ITÁ HYDRO ELECTRIC POWER PLANT, BRAZIL, AND THE BRUTE FORCE TECHNOLOGY IN PRESENT DAY HISTORY OF URUGUAY RIVER

Abstract

We discuss the construction of the Itá Hydroelectric Power Plant, Brazil, based on the political implications of the use of brute force technologies, and their role in altering local landscapes. We understand this power plant as a vector for reading historic relations between technology and politics in Brazil, since the period of state with a determining role in development to a neoliberal regulatory state, which privatized the generation and distribution of energy in the late 1990s. In order to work with this theme, we use documentary support produced during the construction and start-up period of the plant's activities, comparing them with other sources, of official, state and private origin.