When the State Fails, Care is Reborn: Black Women and the Reconstruction of Living

• Grant number: 25/08374-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: July 01, 2025
• End date: June 30, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Collective Health
• Principal Investigator: Luciane Miranda Guerra
• Grantee: Vitor Rafael Gomes
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Odontologia de Piracicaba (FOP). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Piracicaba , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Care, historically associated with Black women, is more than an assistential practice: it is a political act and a form of resistance. Since the era of enslavement, Black women have been forced to perform caregiving roles, perpetuating a logic of exploitation but also creating networks of support and collective survival. The Renascer Community, in Piracicaba, São Paulo State, reflects this reality, being led by a Black woman who organizes strategies of care and reception in a territory neglected by the State. Inspired by care theory, harm reduction, and gender performativity, this leadership is able to reframe care as a tool for empowerment and belonging. Historical-dialectical materialism reveals how the devaluation of care is linked to the subalternization of these women, whose ancestral knowledge has been rendered invisible, yet remains essential for community survival. This ethnography seeks to understand how this leader reframes care and strengthens harm reduction while confronting the structural violence that affects her community. By articulating traditional practices, these women challenge Eurocentric models and reaffirm care as collective knowledge that transcends the non-State, structuring new forms of resistance and social reconstruction. (AU)