The contemporary management of the poor: what policies like PRONASCI and UPP mean by "social"

• Grant number: 13/22630-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: March 01, 2014
• End date: November 30, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology - Urban Sociology
• Principal Investigator: Gabriel de Santis Feltran
• Grantee: Luana Dias Motta
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 13/07616-7 - CEM - Center for Metropolitan Studies, AP.CEPID
• Associated scholarship(s): 14/27016-7 - The effects of the pacification: an analysis of the relationship between security and the city, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

In the contemporary programs dedicated to the management of the urban order, the notion of 'social risk' appears prominently with a double sense. On the one hand, it refers to the increasing violence generated by the growing of the 'criminal world' in the suburbs. In this sense, 'social risk' denotes a threat to the general population. On the other hand, the same notion is used to underline the suburbs resident's conditions of poverty and social vulnerability. Assembling these two senses, it is possible to note the ambivalence and put it under examination: the population at social risk is also a social risk. The growing junction between the logics of social policy and security both developed to handle poverty evolve from this ambivalence. Acknowledging this background, this project aims to understand how the notion of 'social' has been adopted in policies whose intent is the control of the public order. The purpose is to investigate the meanings and contents assigned to the notion of social and its implications for the policies designed to manage poor areas and its residents. In order to do that, the investigation begins analyzing: i) the guidelines that have guided the development of security policies for areas and populations considered to be vulnerable, ii) the institutional design of these policies and iii) how they are experienced in the field by those who are responsible for its implementation and those considered to be the "target audience" of these policies. To understand how these three dimensions are related the documentary research will be combined to fieldwork including interviews with public managers and ethnography in the slum of Cidade de Deus where the heuristic objects of research are the National Program for Public Security and Citizenship (PRONASCI) and UPP Social Program.