Vulnerabilty and precariousness in a favela in Rio de Janeiro: noises, control and conventions of the Bolsa Família Program

Abstract

The article discusses how the Bolsa Família Program (PBF) is mobilized and gains different meanings in the practices and discourses of beneficiaries in a favela in Rio de Janeiro. The empirical material comes from fieldwork research in the Favela do Tripé (fictitious name), a precarious stretch of a larger favela which involved participant observation and interaction with the Program beneficiaries. From these women's speeches, we reflect on the relationship among the PBF and vulnerabilities, food, health, gender conventions, and the role and presence of the State in favela contexts. The issue of care, represented by the central position of mothers/women, is also one of the conducting axis of the analysis, showing how the act of care reiterates moral conventions. From the noises - ranging from shootings to the screams of mothers - there is also a discussion about the position of the woman and her role as caregiver and mother, addressing that group's expectations. These expectations reaffirm gender conventions and make evident the moralization of the female place and the maternal condition. In addition to State violence, organized crime agents and diffuse controls and surveillance in the Favela do Tripé, the other dimension of sociability of the residents addressed here concerns vulnerability and precariousness.