Sociability and urban life

3. Poverty and sociability networks - Comparing urban aspects in different areas of São Paulo.

In recent years a consensus has grown as to the relevance of social dynamics to understand the different manifestations of poverty within a given society. Poverty may be marked by cumulative trajectories of material and symbolic loss, where combinations of events weaken the insertion of citizens into the labor market, as well as their socio-familiar insertion, but families and individuals are also unevenly equipped in terms of their ability to use vehicles to confront and even reverse the harmful effects of accidents outside their control.

Our knowledge of the effects of these dynamics in terms of causing poverty is still incipient. This project will contribute to our understanding of how poverty comes about in the city of Sao Paulo, by a comparative and quantitative analysis of the different contexts in which poverty exists, isolating and analyzing the different effects of (i) interpersonal relationship that are, to a greater or lesser extent, direct and included within the sphere of primary sociability and the extended family, (ii) the standards of behavior governed by the rules of reciprocity and trust based relationships, and (iii) shared interests and membership in associations, including those of a religious nature.

The project is conceived as a complementary effort to the ethnographic analyses to be conducted in Cidade Tiradentes and in the downtown area, as well as those that may be done in Rio de Janeiro and Salvador.

Coordinator: Adrián Gurza Lavalle, Haroldo Torres, Alvaro Comin e Graziela Castello