Free to develop: the great enterprises and the "development" in the traditional community of Cumbe, Ceará, Brazil

Abstract

According to Amartya Sen, the deprivation of freedom limits the people’s choices and opportunities. Thus, in order to guarantee the exercise of individuals as agents is necessary to eliminate such deprivation, making freedom the main purpose of development. Freedom, in this way, is related to the improvement on food conditions, political action, health, education and sanitation access. With this in mind, this article aims to investigate which freedom is potentialized or limited by the installation of wind towers and shrimp farms in a traditional quilombola fishing community, which is located in the state of Ceará, Brazil - the Cumbe community. The restrictions on the community freedom were observed through two fieldworks and interviews with residents. Additionally, there have been reports of privatizations of livelihoods, neglecting of sanitation aspects implicating on community health risks. It was also highlighted the repression of political freedom, illustrated in episodes in which the population was coerced, intimidated and criminalized while facing  the environmental injustices caused by the enterprises. Hence, it is necessary to problematize the type of development in the traditional communities, since this development can illustrate the economic progress of entrepreneurs groups at the expense of the traditional ways of life, subalternizing and making the communities invisible, as it was diagnosed in the Cumbe community.