“Eu não posso me dar ao luxo de ficar parada”: circuitos de dinheiro e cuidado em uma favela carioca

Abstract

This thesis aims to understand how money, economic dynamics, and the moral conflicts associated with them shape the daily lives of women in the favela, intertwining care, mobility between households, and life strategies. Based on an ethnography conducted in the Complexo do Alemão, I analyze how different sources of income – such as child support, self-employment earnings, financial aid, and money received within affective and sexual relationships – are converted and resignified into categories such as “money for expenses,” “children’s money,” “dripping money” (dinheiro que pinga), “help” (ajudas), and “extra money” (um dinheiro a mais). The native categories “moving around” (se movimentar), “running after” (correr atrás), and “improving life” (melhorar de vida) guide the analysis of everyday temporalities, revealing how the pursuit of stability is a continuous process of negotiation, experience, and the construction of future expectations. Moral evaluations of motherhood permeate disputes over who should provide care and how it should be done, allowing other members of the support network to claim authority over children. These disputes take place within relationships marked by affection, obligation, and conflict, which, while ensuring the continuity of care, also create tensions around family roles. Mobility between houses and support networks is essential for managing both these relationships and household economies. The temporalities of economy and life intersect, shaping different perceptions of past, present, and future, linked to favela transformations, aspirations for improvement, and access to more stable sources of income. By integrating money, gender, and care through the lens of household configurations, this thesis contributes to the social studies of economy, demonstrating that care work – embedded in circuits of mutual assistance and conflict – cannot be dissociated from the material and social arrangements of households, nor from the circulations, negotiations, and economic disputes that shape them.