Do lado de fora: estratégias de cuidado e gramáticas emocionais diante da institucionalização do cuidado na pandemia de Covid-19

Abstract

When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in Brazil, hospitalized patients were kept isolated from their families as a preventive and disease control measure. In many hospitals, protocols prohibited contact between patients and their families. In some cases, this prohibition even included virtual interaction mediated by cell phones. This situation gave rise to a scenario in which families, mostly represented by women, found themselves deprived of the role of being primarily responsible for the care of their members. Given this circumstance, which has been compared to the feeling of having a child “kidnapped”, the two main questions that this thesis aims to answer are 1) what care strategies were created or developed during this period by family members of hospitalized patients and 2) what emotional grammars were mobilized due to the institutionalization of care. To this end, I begin by presenting the main theories on care, seeking to highlight the close relationship between care, women, and family. The main objective is to situate Brazil in this discussion in order to clarify how the Covid-19 pandemic created a context that required family members located outside hospitals to develop care strategies and mobilize their own emotional grammars to deal with the institutionalization of care.