Multiple poverties in contemporary public policies: contributions from social constructionism and actor-network theory (tar)

Abstract

This article presents poverty as multiple and complex, performed by a network of heterogeneous materials of the contemporary public policies. The methodological design used is based on social constructivism approach, which considers reality as constructed through the various instruments in the course of a number of different practices. To understand Public Policy for Combating Poverty as a heterogeneous network of human and non-human actors via the Family Grant Program, we articulated a dialogue with some scores of Actor-Network Theory and epistemological references that question the ontological foundations of truth and reality through the notion of multiplicity. From the observations, interviews, conversations and readings of public documents of the actions of the Family Grant Program, we described three versions of "poverty": the calculated poverty, the registered and the controlled poverty. These versions coexist with each other, and should not be construed in a manner isolated in such a way that would produce a whole summed or compose a portrait of "poverty" homogeneous, stable and permanent, seized by a diversity of views and perspectives. On the contrary, we propose here a multitude of "poverties". We punctuated that the connections and bifurcations among poverty versions produced by material elements and socialization of the heterogeneous network of the public policies for combating poverty will bring contributions to the psychosocial look which could destabilize, desterritoryalize and make more flexible the traditional notions of poor and poverty.