Necropolíticas : abandono e morte de pessoas em situação de rua

Abstract

This research aimed to analyze the political strategies used to abandon and get rid of homeless people. Thus, we relied on Foucault's concept of Biopolitics (2014, 2014), on Agamben's concept of Tanatopolitics (2010) and on Mbembe's concept of Necropolitics (2016). Also, we based ourselves on Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (2001) in order to understand how the representations of street situation impact on the policies of abandonment and death of that group of people. Bearing this in mind, we conducted Life Narrative interviews with homeless people, which were carried out at Centro de Referência Especializado para População em Situação de Rua - Centro POP- in Anápolis, state of Goiás, Brazil. In this study, we narrated the stories of João José, João, Carol, José Pedro, Fernando e Mariana, pseudonyms of the homeless people interviewed. In addition to the Life Narratives, we used fieldnotes to register informal talks and perceptions about the research field. Data were collected through the Life Narratives produced by the research participants, as well as through fieldnotes. Still, we made use of analytical narratives in which we use excerpts taken from the aforementioned Life Narratives. These excerpts are presented along with the researcher’s interactions. Researching Life Narratives allowed us to understand the lives of those who live on the streets, for they put in evidence an inequitable and unfair society, which abandons and leaves homeless people to die. The narrated life stories are permeated with situations of violence, fear, cold, hunger and death, generally ignored by the State and by the Civil society. In general, only mainstream media representations of the most privileged individuals are taken into account, which of them are, most of the time, used to justify and naturalize this situation. The relevance of this work lies precisely on denouncing the precarious/inhumane life situations of these individuals. Therefore, in this research, we took an explicit ethical- political stand aiming to build a space for analysis and denouncement of the social injustices to which homeless people are subject.