Abstract:
This article aims to analyze, from a gendered perspective, in which ways the construction of moral and symbolic boundaries resulting from the implementation of a program to reduce poverty, the Bolsa Familia, are developed in a non-premeditated manner. We seek to clarify the nature of these boundaries and the negotiations of their content. In order to better understand the complexity of the status formation process of the beneficiaries (mothers), we have been present through different places through which the beneficiaries move. By means of interviews conducted in a periphery of Rio de Janeiro we can affirm that the relations between the beneficiaries and the nonbeneficiaries are based on a moral matrix which encompasses tensions in the evaluation of gender (‘good’ and ‘bad mother’), which also reproduces a hierarchy of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ poor.
Keywords:
Gender; Symbolic Boundaries; Bolsa Família Program