“Cair na rede”: circulações desde os abrigos da cidade

Abstract

Taking homeless shelters as a starting point, this thesis seeks to map some of the mechanisms employed in the administration – and production – of impoverished bodies in their circulations and encounters with the State. I seek evidences to identify which design of city and State is created by the urban tissue and its administration system to manage undesirables of various types and circumstances. Furthermore, I investigate which subjectivities and moralities emerge from the (constant) encounters of these undesirables with the government apparatus of the State. I also seek to identify, through ethnography, the several marks of impoverishment that penetrate and inscribe themselves in these bodies, which at some point in their lives – or several – “enter” or “wind up in” the system of assistance. This study is based on field research involving two homeless shelters of the city of Rio de Janeiro between 2015 and 2017. Starting from these shelters, I accompanied a few of their users in their circulations through other governmental or non-governmental institutions. This research begins in the streets, in the observation of “urban ordering” politics set into practice during the city’s preparations for hosting large-scale events; in a first moment, it enters the shelters and follows closely the comings and goings of one female user through several institutions.