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Drawing on ethnographic research in El Oasis, a highly precarious self-built settlement in Medellín, Colombia, this article examines the illegal practice of autoconstruction as a material expression of hope. It focuses on the multilayered, symbolic meaning of self-built housing, as it represents the pursuit of dignity, permanence, and agency—as opposed to poverty, uncertainty, and lack of agency—and an active and material form of hoping for a better future in the city. The state plays an ambiguous role in residents’ perspectives, who conceive of it, simultaneously, as a threat to and a guarantor of their future in the city. This ambiguity becomes materialized in the physical form of residents’ self-built housing, as residents either embrace or refrain from making improvements to their houses in response to shifting perceptions about the state’s intentions regarding the future of the settlement.

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.

Thomas D. Rogers, The Deepest Wounds: A Labor and Environmental History of Sugar in Northeast Brazil. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010. // Maria Helena Moreira Alves and Philip Evanson, Living in the Crossfire: Favela Residents, Drug Dealers, and Police Violence in Rio de Janeiro. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011. // Timothy J. Power and Matthew M. Taylor (eds.), Corruption and Democracy in Brazil: The Struggle for Accountability. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2011. // Wendy Hunter, The Transformation of the Workers' Party in Brazil, 1989-2009. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Contains fulltext : 183903.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) The Semi-Arid region of Brazil (SAB) has been periodically affected by moderate to extreme droughts, jeopardizing livelihoods and severely impacting the life standards of millions of family farmers. In the early 1990s the Human Coexistence with Semi-Aridity (HCSA) emerged as a development approach. The debate on HCSA is limited to Brazilian literature but as a technological and a bottom-up governance experience, researches on the topic could add some insights to international debate on living with drought. The present paper adopts an historical perspective on HCSA before discussing the main HCSA's rainwater-harvesting methods found in two case studies in the SAB as a local appropriate and advanced technological package for achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Qualitative analysis of 32 semi-structured interviews with key local stakeholders, 29 unstructured interviews with family farmers, and surveys in 499 family farms are used. The results show that regardless the highly adaptive potential, the technologies are adopted in differ rates among them and in between case studies chosen, influenced by non-technological factors and interacting the broader public policies context. Scaling up the HCSA's technologies in the rural SAB is a development path towards the SDGs. 16 p.

Risk perceptions influence individual and collective adaptive responses to climate hazards. Up to now, the majority of literature addressing climate change perception and adaptation has been location-specific. Such an approach is limited with respect to the construction of a generalized theory around why and how people perceive and act towards climate change risks. This chapter seeks to contribute to overcome this limitation by offering a cross-sectional study of climate change risks perceptions among smallholder farmers settled in three contrasting biomes in Brazil: the Amazon (rainforest); the Caatinga (semi-arid); and the Cerrado (savanna). By articulating regional, local and micro scales of comparison, common traits in the perception of climate variability are identified. It is not intended, at this stage, to validate particular theories of climate change, but rather to contribute to a better understanding of climate change as a trans-regional and socially embedded environmental phenomenon. This study shows that, in spite of existing perceptive barriers, smallholders settled in dramatically different contexts share perceptions about risks linked to the following phenomena: (i) changes in the timing of seasons, (ii) decrease in rainfall levels; (iii) temperature rises. Moreover, there are specific adaptation strategies to climate change, like the timing of seeding, which appear to be addressed independently by smallholders of the three biomes. Public policies intended to support adaptive measures and the increase of food security must take subjective risk perception into account within the cultural and environmental contexts of the actors involved.

This gallery is one of the results of fieldwork conducted in the Brazilian semi-arid region between 2011 and 2013, in the states of Bahia, Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Norte, Piauí and Ceará. Around 1,140 family farmers were interviewed. The four case studies were selected through a combination of socioeconomic and climate characteristics, in order to compose a representative sample of the micro-regional vulnerabilities of the region. This project was carried out as a part of the Brazilian Research Network on Global Climate Change’s sub-network dealing with Climate Change and Regional Development. The focus on smallholder farming in Brazil’s Northeast is important because this sector is highly sensitive to climate stimuli, has a weak capacity to deal with and prevent impacts of climate variability, and is an important source of food production in Brazil., Esta galeria é fruto de dois anos de pesquisas de campo conduzidas no Semiárido nordestino. Entre 2011 e 2013, cerca de 1,140 mil produtores rurais familiares foram entrevistados nos estados da Bahia, Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Norte, Piauí e Ceará (ver mapa) pela equipe de Desenvolvimento Regional e Mudanças Climáticas da Rede Brasileira de Mudanças Cimaticas - Rede Clima.

Political uncertainties about the global capacity to keep greenhouse gases within safe concentration limits along with new evidence from science showing that some degree of climate change is unavoidable have drawn international attention to the urgency of considering adaptation measures as important as mitigation actions. As a result, many efforts have been made to provide decision-makers with integrated systems of vulnerability assessment that can guide policy action towards mainstreaming adaptation on the governmental development agenda. (?)

O artigo se propõe a discutir as diferentes formas de mal uso de recursos públicos ligados ao programa de construção de cisternas P1MC. Se tal programa é responsável por uma transformação material radical na vida da população mais pobre da região, seus efeitos sobre as estruturas tradicionais de dominação não são claros. A questão principal que orienta este trabalho é: transformadas as condições materiais, como evolui a dependência em um contexto marcado pela dominação de uma elite que utiliza a pobreza como meio de reprodução? Se a restrição hídrica continua a servir os interesses de uma elite local para se manter no poder, pode-se falar em clientelismo no caso do P1MC? Para responder tais questões, o artigo baseia-se em pesquisa de campo realizada em oito municípios de Pernambuco e Bahia, combinando entrevistas institucionais e visitas a domicílios rurais. Em uma perspectiva histórica, e através da análise das entrevistas realizadas, o artigo demonstra como o P1MC não promove o fim de práticas clientelistas , mas em conjunto com outras políticas existentes, contribui para uma mudança radical na situação dos mais pobres, não só material, mas também em relação aos patrões e demais atores que controlam o acesso a recursos públicos no Nordeste.

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.