EXPRESSIONS OF ETHICAL-POLITICAL SUFFERING OF THE HOMELESS POPULATION IN BAIRRO DA LUZ (Atena Editora)

Abstract

The article reports the research that emerged from the work of the authors in the extension project “Stay alive!”, in the Luz neighborhood in São Paulo/SP. The intervention was based on the provision of psychological care for homeless people who use psychoactive substances. The objective was to analyze the forms of expression of ethical-political suffering reported by the people assisted. Expressed in different ways, such as inequalities related to issues of gender, ethnicity, age and social class, ethical-political suffering portrays the ethical dimension of the daily experience of social inequality. The option to study social exclusion through emotions aims to indicate the (dis)commitment to human suffering, both on the part of the State, civil society and the individual himself. The cartography method allowed diving into an unknown territory and the construction of know-how, based on the intervention carried out with the participants. The consultations were aimed at listening and accepting the demand and lasted, on average, 15 minutes. Data were produced over a period of 6 months, based on the preparation of field diaries containing information about the activity and notes about the consultations. For data analysis, records of 6 participants were selected, 4 cisgender men, 1 cisgender woman and 1 transgender woman. All participants were black, aged approximately 30 years. The reports identified in the field diary were analyzed in the following categories: social humiliation, guilt and shame and public invisibility. Social exclusion was evidenced through the analysis of emotions, affirming the need for State action in the deconstruction of the logic that sustains social exclusion/inclusion dialectic.