Percepções sociais da pobreza no Bairro de Maxaquene “A”

Abstract

Discussions related to poverty, at present, have attracted the interest of researchers from different areas of knowledge. The approaches used have varied over time and the contexts where research is done. The studies of poverty in the world previously gave relevance to approaches to poverty related to income, but over time, the advancement of sciences, intervention and works elaborated by anthropologists and sociologists such as: Sen (2000), Narayan (2000 ), Cruzeiro do Sul (2006), Douglas (2007), Mate et al. (2007), Costa (2009), Paulo et al. (2010), we begin to observe the use of approaches to poverty as a deprivation of capacities; such as social exclusion and multidimensional poverty. These changes have greatly influenced the study of poverty and changes in government and private action plans to alleviate poverty. However, the review of the literature on poverty reveals a development of studies on the meanings attributed to poverty in each context, its impressions and opinions. This work aims to understand the elements involved in the perception of the meanings attributed to poverty by the residents of the neighborhood of Maxaquene "A", as well as the strategies used by them to overcome them. So much so, that the fieldwork used the theoretical model of Douglas (2007) and Narayan (2000), which privilege the cultural look that submits us to a particular view of the poor themselves about “what it means to be poor”, followed by a multidimensional approach. From two meetings with focus groups in the neighborhood of Maxaquene “A” and ten interviews with informants living in the neighborhood of Maxaquene “A”, the attributes were identified generators of social perceptions of poverty that are directly associated with specific objectives; the strategies used to characterize poverty; and forms of perceptions used for poverty within the field of survival strategies such as: mutual aid as a mechanism for overcoming problems and the countryside / city relationship in the context of poverty. We believe, therefore, that this work can make a significant contribution to the understanding of the social perceptions attributed to poverty in the neighborhood of Maxaquene “A”, proposing an approach that associates the perceptions of poverty with the attributes considered relevant for the residents of the neighborhood, and that this micro particularity contributes, in a different way in the interpretation and look at research on poverty. (TRADUÇÃO NOSSA)