Circulation of the homeless population on the margins of the south zone of São Paulo: ethnography of the wreckage

• Grant number: 22/12810-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: April 01, 2023
• End date: May 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Urban Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: Taniele Cristina Rui
• Grantee: Gabriel Rocha Teixeira Mendes
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/13951-8 - Circulation of the homeless population on the margins of the south zone of São Paulo: ethnography of the wreckage, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

Twenty years after the enactment of Law 10.216/01, which sanctioned the psychiatric reform in Brazil and produced structural changes in our mental health care model, there is a lack of assistance to certain people, especially the homeless population with mental disorders associated with the use of alcohol and other drugs. This gap has been increasingly occupied by Therapeutic Communities, producing an institutional circuit in which these people are sometimes on the streets, sometimes institutionalized; and when they are in therapeutic communities, they are often violated (Rui and Fiore, 2021). Based on this context, the main objective of the work presented here is to analyze the movement of these people on the margins of the south zone of São Paulo, focusing on the different institutional uses of services such as Psychosocial Care Centers and Therapeutic Communities. It also seeks to discuss the relationships they establish with the city, on the one hand, the way in which rights and policies are presented to those assisted, and on the other hand, how they conceive them. Through the ethnographic experience, we intend to explore this itinerant way of life, the way in which everyday life is manufactured and their networks are created, the situations that propitiate movements and stops, as well as the composition of the routes. The project aims to contribute transversally to studies on the city, public health and social rights.