Visões da Pobreza na Primeira Pessoa: Contributos para o Entendimento de Fenómeno Social da Pobreza na Cidade de Beja

Abstract

Na forma de vivenciar a pobreza, o papel de protecção da família, enquanto “amortecedor” dos efeitos da pobreza, traduz um nexo de causalidade entre o nível de coesão familiar e o provimento de apoio afectivo e material. Deste modo, a incidência, intensidade e durabilidade são importantes indicadores na forma de vivenciar a pobreza. Tal pode conduzir a que a experiência deste fenómeno social se torne num modo de vida, no qual a aceitação e resignação tornam o “ser pobre” como um facto paulatinamente assimilado por quem o vive. Opostamente as pessoas que vivem esta situação mais recentemente, tendem a não assumi-la como elemento identitário, com receio do estigma social, facto que as empurra para a procura de saídas da pobreza

This research project consists in a qualitative study which deals with the way poor/deprived people experience their condition. It aims to get to know and to understand how the condition of poverty is lived and experienced by the self, and also to frame the social phenomenon of poverty in its territorial dimension. With these aims in mind, the research project analysed the available social measures/responses to poverty in a concrete and defined territory: the town of Beja. An inductive methodological procedure was adopted, as the project departed from the study of a real-life situation to the interpretation and understanding of that same reality. However, the study did not aim at achieving an explanation which could be applied or generalized to other or wider contexts. The observation tools consisted in semi-structured interviews to question the social workers of Beja’s social institutions, who directly intervene in the phenomenon. In-depth interviews were also designed, in order to study and understand the life experiences, discourse and trajectories of poor/deprived people. The main theoretical references relied on the consistent contributions of several authors such as: Alfredo Bruto da Costa, Serge Paugam, Luís Capucha, Maria Lúcia Martinelli, Francisco Branco, José Pereirinha, Renato do Carmo, José Cutileiro, Nuno Alves, among others. This research project led to the conclusion that poor people’s everyday life is deeply influenced by the experience of poverty, which confines these people to the domestic environment, given the absence of financial resources. As far as the experience of poverty is concerned, the role of family protection, as a way of ‘softening’ the effects of poverty, evinces a causal nexus between the level of family cohesion and the provision of affective and material support. Thus, incidence, intensity and durability are important indicators as far as the self-experience of poverty is concerned. This may lead to a situation where the experience of this social phenomenon becomes a way of life, and where passive acquiescence or resigned acceptance make the condition of “being poor” a gradually assimilated fact by those who experience it. Conversely, those who have started to experience this situation more recently tend not to assume poverty as a (self-)identity element, mainly due to the fear of social discrimination/rejection, which pushes them into an actively search for ways out of their deprived condition.