The conception of poverty that underlies the Bolsa Família program in the Lula governments: towards the construction of citizenship?
Name: LUCAS ARCANJO CASSINI
Publication date: 14/12/2010
Summary: This work examines the conception of poverty underlying the Brazils Family Allowance Program [Programa Bolsa Família] during the two mandates of President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva. Supported on a bibliographical and documentary research, its main purpose is to verify whether that program, based on such a conception, is essentially made up of compensatory arrangements or whether it provides real opportunities of access to citizenship. It was intended to evaluate the hypothesis according to which that conception of poverty constitutes a strategy to lead the poor people to conform with their own situation, even though the Family Allowance Program provides some small improvements in their life conditions. Although that program is currently the main component of the Brazilian social protection system, this works main conclusions are as follows: in the Family Allowance Programs accomplishment, the concrete positiveness of the poor people is not considered only their lacks are taken into account; poverty is not conceived as a multifaceted phenomenon, for only monetary income criterion is used to define who is in such a social condition; as that criterion is too narrow, the program does not assist many poor families; for the program at issue does not promote the autonomy of the assisted families and does not affect, in a essential way, the social relationships prevailing in the Brazilian society relations marked by extreme inequalities , it does not help poor to build conditions for the exercise of a protagonist citizenship.
