Search

Contains fulltext : 286169.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) How is policy implementation affected by increased polarisation and extreme shifts in politics? In order to address this question, the paper focuses on frontline workers' (street-level bureaucrats') interpretations of political shifts and how these are then translated into practice. Building on ethnographic fieldwork conducted among social workers in Northeast Brazil, the paper proposes a theoretical framework for analysing the influence of political landscapes on policy implementation by foregrounding the political processes in which these agents play a critical role. Drawing on empirical data, the paper proposes ideal types of possible outcomes of translation practices - counterbalance, collaboration, resistance - that function as a guiding framework for future research. 14 p.

Cet article analyse la relation entre les assistantes sociales et les bénéficiaires du programme de transfert conditionnel de revenus Bolsa Família au Brésil. Il vise à montrer comment les frontières de classe symboliques et matérielles structurent cette relation. Il s’appuie sur une enquête ethnographique réalisée auprès des bureaux chargés de la mise en œuvre du programme dans une municipalité de la région Nordeste du Brésil. L’article situe les assistantes sociales dans l’espace social et décrit les conditions objectives de leur travail et leurs interactions avec les bénéficiaires du programme. Il analyse également le point de vue des bénéficiaires sur le programme ainsi que celui des assistantes sociales qui le mettent en œuvre. Nos résultats montrent que les interactions bureaucratiques qui ont lieu entre assistantes sociales et bénéficiaires sont imprégnées des rapports de classe entre ces catégories d’acteurs, en particulier des représentations associées aux “pauvres” circulant dans la société brésilienne. This article analyses the relationship between social workers and beneficiaries of the Bolsa Família conditional cash transfer programme in Brazil. Its aim is to highlight how symbolic and material class boundaries structure this relationship. It is based on an ethnographic research of the offices responsible for the implementation of the programme in a municipality in the interior of Northeast Brazil. The article situates social workers in the social space and describes the objective working conditions and of the interactions with the programme’s beneficiaries. It also analyses the point of view of the latter group about the programme and the social workers responsible to its implementation. With our results we argue that the bureaucratic interactions between social workers and beneficiaries are marked by class relations between these groups of actors, and particularly by representations associated with the “poor” conveyed in Brazilian society.

In a context where personal relations play a central role in structuring political life, to what extent should a researcher differentiate “normal” from “deviant” political behavior? This chapter addresses this question from a socio-anthropological point of view, analyzing the use of anti-poverty programs for vote-buying purposes in Northeast Brazil. More specifically, the objective of this chapter is to describe the mobilization of a political machine directly involving anti-poverty programs during election times. The aim here is to describe the dynamics of vote buying in Northeast Brazil, especially through the cooptation of social workers and the use of their formal attributions to increase vote-buying effectiveness among the poorest.