A maloca do Pela Porco: dinâmicas de sobrevivência de usuários-catadores num espaço do centro de Salvador

Abstract

Surviving on and from the streets requires sagacity, as well as gathering and adjusting things. After all, being alone and isolated from the collective makes things even more difficult. From this perspective, the investigation that shapes this dissertation has planned to map actors and institutions that make up sociability networks at Pela Porco space, allowing people who are in drug use and in homelessness experience the maintenance of their lives. The objectives were to meet Pela Porco’s history in a circumscribed manner, focusing on the immediate surroundings of the scene of use; to identify the services, institutions and other organizations that act in that space, as well as to describe the sociability networks there established. From a theoretical point of view, the reflections here proposed were anchored in a range of authors, from which the concept of space of Henri Lefebvre is highlighted in order to think about street appropriation and the destiny given by the user to something once differently idealized. Similarly, contributions of Bruno Latour and his Actor-Network Theory were fundamental to support the argument on the formation of sociability networks as a means to evidence the connections between distinct actors. Tim Ingold’s conceptual vocabulary was also triggered in a critical dialogue with Latour, explaining webs, tangles and threads that bring things back to life, placing them in a pari passu relationship with human beings. The paths taken for the execution of the objectives were multiple, considering the complexity of the social group investigated and the specificities of the interlocutors. In the first phase, field observations were crucial to understanding that other methodologies would be suitable. In this way, we adapted the methodology for each specific objective, thus questionaries, recorded interviews, informal conversations and others guided by a previously constructed script were applied, in addition to the field notes that were fundamental in the construction of the text. Finally, we conclude that we have reached the Anthropocene, in ruins caused by human action. In this scenario, the consequences occur in a more effective manner for historically vulnerable social groups.