Abstract:
The article describes and analyzes the daily life of the Silva Family, based on the consumption and expenditure of the money coming from the Bolsa Família Income Transfer Program. To talk about the Bolsa Família Program (PBF) based on the story of one of the women participating in this study and her family is to tell a little about her life story. To this end, an ethnographic research was carried out. We spent four years living together, visiting and talking. Based on the observations, we found that families in extreme poverty, such as the Silva family, are considered poor based on the “formal” criteria of the program – per capita income – and the “informal” criteria of the slum dwellers (housing, work etc.). However, they suffer from “poverty surveillance”, based on a moralizing discourse about what and how to consume.
Keywords:
Ethnography; Bolsa Família; Consumption; Poverty