RESUMEN

Palabras clave: historia de vida; desafiliación; redes sociales; personas adultas en situación de calle.

INTRODUCTION

Based on a life history reconstitution, this is a case study about the life of an adult man who lives on the streets in the City of São Paulo, Brazil. The central focus of this study is on the unique strategies to create and expand his social, religious, cultural, economic and/or affective support networks based on the situation in which the streets are the organizer of social relationships, housing and work.  This work analyzes the formation of belonging groups and collective identities, as well as the alternatives created to build support and establish new possibilities of life.

It is understood that the homeless population, as a social group (Oliven, 1995), moves between areas of vulnerability and disaffiliation as defined by Castel (1994, 1998), because it is often subject to the lack of jobs or to temporary jobs and life courses marked by breaks. We emphasize, however, that

What seems more fruitful in Castel's studies (1994, 1998) for this reflection is what is deduced from the close protection concept. Built in the sphere of emotional and familiar ties, in the relationship networks and in culture, the close protection creates fields of support and interpersonal sharing even in the adversity of deterioration of work. For this author, the close protection is constituted by the weaving of sociability and solidarity networks which find in the family and in the culture dimension two essential records. It is, thus, the nutritious humus to the most miserable population segment, where goods and services, as well as a trade system that keeps or creates social ties and the meaning are shared. Disaffiliation emerges when proximity relationships (interdependence system founded in family, lineage or community), which  insert a person in his/her territory in the complicity produced by the feeling of belonging, become unable to guarantee life existence and to ensure protection.

Pedro is 43 years old, his parents are from the State of Bahia (BA) and he was born in the State of São Paulo (SP). He is used to wearing a bus driver's uniform and telling stories about his life, expecting that his interlocutors learn from his ‘mistakes', as he says, and with the religious teachings he transmits when he has the opportunity. He introduces himself as an ex-homeless person and ex-beggar that could, through his religiosity together with the support of the social services network and other exchange and interpersonal relation networks, return to his family and work, abstaining from drinking alcohol and using drugs.

In the discussion of Pedro's history, the analysis of religiosity is fundamental to reread his life experience on the streets of the City of Sao Paulo. The participation in the Seventh-Day Adventist Church (SDA), the insertion into work as a heavy vehicles driver, the return his family, the participation in the dynamics of Praça da Sé³, the use of the social care services (as shelters, "bocas de rango"⁴, and service and coexistence centers) composed a set of interpersonal relationships to rebuild a sense of belonging, reframe the negative experience and reverse the disruption process of networks and the drift of senses.

We have made use of Magnani's work (1996, 2002, 2003) about the cities and the belonging networks of urban social groups. By articulating a reflection on the city and ethnography, the researcher proposes, as opposed to what he called a "look from outside and from far away", the "look from near and from within," which implies to start from the social actors,

Thus, in order to understand the dynamics inherent to urban societies, this researcher has created the concept of "piece" to explain a particular type of social relations in a space that becomes a reference for certain groups belonging to a network of relationships, regardless of territorial boundaries. In this study, it was possible to recognize the "pieces" of belonging in Pedro's social networks, and from these, the paths (flows through the city) and circuits (space and equipment networks related to a particular practice or service offering).

It is worth noting that this study is located at the interface between individual and society. In seeking to overcome a historically constructed division between individual and society, Elias (1994) coined the concept of interdependence among individuals. The author showed that the ideas of individual and society are closely articulated by a broad interactive process; there would be a relationship of interdependence among individuals, as in the image of a fabrics network, which can only be understood in terms of how the threads are connected and of their mutual relationship.

The interdependence can be expressed, thus, in the different forms of belonging, as religious and artistic circuits, social movements and family rearrangements, among other examples. The notion of identity construction proposed by Castells (2002, p. 18) - which is based on "the construction of meaning from cultural attributes or yet a set of interrelated attributes, which prevails on other sources of meaning" - contributes to the analysis of what may be the practical expression of the notion of interdependence.

The homeless people are understood as a social group composed by people who use public spaces as housing spaces and in order to perform daily activities (such as sleeping, eating and working), they spend the night in shelters because they do not have independent housing and they make use of the services of social care network, as temporary housing projects and service centers (Balcony, 2003). Since 1991, the Fundação Instituto de Pesquisas Econômicas - Fipe (Economic Research Institute Foundation) and the Department of Social Welfare have carried out researches in the City of São Paulo, aiming to characterize this social group. The most recent data (São Paulo, 2003) point to a population of 10,394 homeless people, 6184 living in shelters and 4208 living on the streets. In total, 84% are male, and most of them are from the state of São Paulo.

Method

The ethnographic research focusing on life histories composed the strategies to  constitute the basis for the discussion presented herein (Queiroz, 1988; Víctora, Knauth and Hassen, 2000). It is about thinking ethnography in the urban environment, and thus, as suggested by Magnani (1996, 2002, 2003) and Oliven (1995), accepting the challenge posed to the researcher to interpret his/her own culture. According to Magnani (1996), in this kind of work it is necessary to seek to overcome the feeling of proximity, creating some distance to turn the familiar into necessary estrangement.

In ethnographic work, the researcher is faced with the need to produce interpretations of social groups or personal histories. But such groups and people also produce interpretations about who they are and what they need. There is, therefore, a plurality of interpretations that must be considered both during data collection and analysis process. One must be remembered that the clash of interpretations is hindered by the distances between the researcher and the subject: differences of social class, gender, age, culture and values, among others. As emphasized by Clifford (1998), the ethnographic texts are orchestrations of polyphonic exchanges in politically charged situations. Subjectivities produced in these exchanges, often unequal, are part of a field of truth construction. Thus, the term "ethno-graphy" can be translated as "the writing of culture", as suggested by Atkinson (1992).

We start from the understanding of the recognition of the research subject as an interlocutor, because, according to Oliveira (2000), the ethnographic work involves meeting with the "other". This "other" is understood as an interlocutor with whom a cooperative relationship is established, creating, this way, the possibility of a dialogic relationship. For these reasons, in this study, we adopt the term "collaborator" as Meihy (2005), to emphasize the need to build a collaborative relationship between interviewer and interviewee. .

The field research, which was carried out for twelve months in 2006, was developed through interviews (with audio recording), field observation, visits to relevant places suggested by the collaborators, and archival and bibliographical research. It should be emphasized, however, that the first contacts with the adult homeless population occurred due to the university extension activities performed by the Metuia Project in a partnership with the Associação Minha Rua Minha Casa  - AMRMC (My Street My Home Association), which started in 2001. It was in this weekly convivial context that the studies with a focus on life histories emerged. The research proposal - approved by the Ethics Committee of the Medical School at USP (protocol 1209/05) - was discussed with the users of that association and some people were invited to collaborate with the study. The invitation to the collaborators was made to users who could fulfill at least two of the following requirements: to take part of housing program; to participate in political organization (specific social movements), to be part of relationship networks of religious nature, to be part of circuits linked to art and culture; to use social care network services as a complementary resource for organizing their daily lives, to have ways of raising income. In addition to these dimensions, which suggest different forms of social participation, one of the selection criteria was that the collaborator should be living or have lived  on the streets for more than two years.

The study was carried out with five collaborators, but here the discussion is on the relationship between religiosity and the networks of close relationships in the reconstruction of meaning and social participation as evidenced by Pedro's history.

As we began the field work, Pedro had relationship networks of religious nature, besides having ways of raising income and using the social care network services as a complementary resource for organizing his daily life. All these were signaling dimensions of the potential for creating social bonds and interpersonal support.

It is worth noting that as part of the method, we favored the collaborator's choices in determining the location of the interviews. Such choices involved interviews at Praça da Sé, for example, and there was a need to deal with the difficulties that were imposed in some situations, as interruptions and noise that damaged the audio recording quality. We have noticed, on the other hand, that certain places were very significant and they seemed to be able to stimulate narratives about experiences lived there, because, at that moment, it was already possible to notice that they represented "his pieces."

There were also visits within his circuits in the city, taking into account the collaborator's suggestions and invitations. This part of the study provided information regarding daily life management and approaches to several collectives, as in the Praça da Sé and in the church. His family home and the  AMRMC have equally been included as spaces of observation and interaction with Pedro and his network of relationships.

The analysis was carried out with basis on the reconstruction of the collaborator's life history, in order to show its interdependence networks and to discuss its uniqueness in the process of identity construction capable of redefining senses, feelings of belonging and to provide historicity to the experience on the streets.

From Capão Redondo to Praça da Sé

Pedro hangs out in the center of the City of Sao Paulo, but he has strong ties with the region of Capão Redondo. He lived with his family in this low income neighborhood in the City of São Paulo until he was 30 years old. He left school at 14, after a number of failures, but finished the fourth grade of elementary school, when he started to work as a street market assistant in his neighborhood because he had to contribute to his family income. At the age of 18, he started working as a truck driver, traveling around the city and to other regions in Brazil. His constant journeys resulted in his distance from his family, and frequent fights between his parents eventually made them opt to get separated. Pedro realized that the consumption of alcoholic drinks, which was part of his life since he was a teenager, was becoming excessive and started to hurt his performance at work, and jeopardize his family and friends relationships.

Without money and with difficulties in family relations, he started to sleep in low cost hotels. He could not get new job opportunities and when his money ended he began to sleep on the streets: there was no one to turn for help; all his relationships were strained. For years, he was away from his family conviviality .

Pedro considered the changes in his relationships with his job as one of the factors that motivated his condition of living on the streets. He evaluated that, about 15 years ago, it was easier to find a job in his area and that he could keep a job, even if he had to change jobs frequently, since he was not able to stay at the same place for a long time due to abuse of alcohol consumption. This life course shows the convergence of a twofold dynamic of vulnerability of social integration: the destruction of bonds and the degradation or absence of jobs, factors that feed the disaffiliation process.

However, it is worth to note that for Pedro the factor that triggered his process to end up living on the streets was giving up his religious practice.

His destiny was the center of the City of Sao Paulo, more specifically, Praça da Sé, the destiny of many people who "end up" on the streets. As Magnani (2003) analyzed leisure activities in the center of Sao Paulo, he faced different uses of the urban space, whose meanings are built and rebuilt by social practices. We went there in order to understand some of these practices as well as Pedro's relationship with them, which is restricted to a certain space, visible in the geography the city.

Pedro got to know this space, and the way he made use of it changed over time. The dynamics of the square is complex; it will be described from the perspective of the relations established by Pedro. It was at that square that he met Maciel, a circus artist who performed exhibitions and sold health products. He worked as his security assistant, selling products and collecting donations, and received a financial aid to do that,  which would vary according to the amount of money raised. After a few years without work, his knowledge about the square, its dynamics and its characters, including the police officers who work there, provided him with opportunities to raise some income.

Besides the imposing cathedral, symbol of the Catholic Church, the square concentrates several preachers from different religious that live together there (not always peacefully) and  dispute the passers-by's attention to spread their knowledge and sell their products. The preachers also compete with street artists.  Large groups of people around an event, which by themselves attract the curiosity of other people, also call the attention of the passers-by and of the people who live at the square. The square is also a workplace for shoeshine boys, hair dressers and sellers who take part of "feira do rolo" (a negotiation fair)⁷, and take advantage of the busy place to sell services or products. We could understand that those people are part of the square and that some people, as Pedro, find comfort, entertainment, services, friends when they experience this dynamic.

Therefore, there are people who go to the square more often, they are at home. Pedro has been interacting more intensively with this group.

Pedro narrates in details one of the of religious proselytism actions that take place at the square. Below is an extract from his narrative: adorn

It was that way that Pedro described his return to the SDA, with some ups and downs, and he considers this contact at Praça da Sé as the moment that marked the beginning of a process called "transformation." In this history, different networks and supports, besides the ones established at Praça da Sé and at the SDA have been established. We intend to briefly reconstruct his life course from this point on.

Spaces and networks in Pedro's experience: assistance care, work and family

Based on the idea of "transformation" motivated by "accepting Jesus," Pedro highlighted the importance of reconciliation bonds and the different networks that he considered part of this process.

The social services constituted an important support network. Pedro's relationship with the social services network was marked by his presence in shelters.  While reflecting upon his own history, Pedro associated his frequency in such services to the possibility of abstaining himself from using alcohol and other drugs. Several times, when talked about his stays in the shelters, he used the expression " they kicked me out," which showed the difficulties he had to remain in these institutions. Two points that called his attention about this service were the rotation of people and the fact that the shelters did not embrace him because he did not adapt to their rules.

During field work it was possible to realize that Pedro had a deep knowledge of the social services network and moved inside this circuit according to his needs and to the opportunities provided. An example of that was his knowledge about the called "bocas de rango" (free meals), the quality of the meals and the necessary rules in order to be offered the services. Some of these services were part of equipment and service contracts with the The São Paulo City Hall, through the Municipal Department of Development and Social Assistance  (SMADS, in Brasil), but some areas of food distribution were known by some people, as the spiritual center in Mooca, which distributed food on Sundays. There are, in the city, a number of situations like this one and only those who are part of this circuit can know about it.  It was within the relations of this circuit of assistance that Pedro got to know  the work of AMRMC. At that space he kept his belongings, he washed his clothes, he took a shower, he ate meals and participated in social educational activities and activities that could generate some income. The intensity of his participation in the service and the type of activity performed were connected to the insertion or not to work, to relationships established with his relatives and to the possibility of adaptation to the institutional rules and interaction with team and users, as well as to the flexibility of the institutional embracement.

Pedro did not mention the AMRMC very much in his reflections, and, when he did, besides acknowledging the support to get his documents and to generate income, while taking part of the government working team, he stated that he used the service "because it was better than staying at home", especially at the time he was unemployed. He also informed that he liked to go to the AMRMC "to support the others", because he participated in activities to maintain the institution. Even when he was working and living with his family, Pedro sporadically took part of the AMRMC activities.

It is interesting to note that, in order not to depend on his family, Pedro chose to stay at the shelters and go to the AMRMC while he was unemployed. He pointed out, however, that the control over alcohol and drugs consumption was a decisive element for him to go back to his family.

The presence in AMRMC, together with the participation at the SDA, was essential for him to reorganize his life. It was through the SDA that he got the job as a bus driver in a company whose owner was also an Adventist.

It is important to point out that the fact that he was working, going to church and could show his family that he was "recovered" were crucial elements to strengthen and maintain his relationship with his relatives.

Even if Pedro considers that the difficulties with the consumption of alcohol are to blame for him not to able to keep the activities that could generate income, as time passed by, he had been subjected to precarious working relationships, without stability and guarantees. This can be understood within a broader social process, which Castel (1998) analyzed as new social issue, when he reflected upon the dynamics of social affiliation dynamics based on work, emphasizing, however, the  relevance of the degradation process of the wage society. Pedro experienced this transformation of the labor market himself.

Except when in religious events, Pedro dressed the bus driver uniform, even when he was unemployed or on his days off. It seems to be necessary for him to become self confident in this professional world, and that is how he wants to be identified.

Historically, not working, laziness and vagrancy have suffered relatively violent restrictions. According to Castel (1998, p. 424), in a specific historical moment, which was the basis for the establishment of the  "wage society", there was a clear division between the ones who work and the ones who do not work, and these were the objectives of the regulations. In the constitution of the wage society, the "vagabond"

It seems that it is from this image that Pedro tried to be detached from.  There is still, according to the author's reflections, the notion of identity construction through the condition of employee, understood beyond salary remuneration, as "the condition from which individuals are placed in the social space" (Castel, 1998 , p. 478). We agree with this author when he says that, in our society, the work provides identity to people.

Being a SDA member and following a set of values and practices enables Pedro to belong to a specific group and to share several codes, including family relations codes. During the field work, the intense narratives about the SDA motivated the seek of religious information and a visit to the church he attends.

The church of a district of the City of São Paulo, where he lives, is his family reference and some of his family members occupy important positions in that religious structure. The region concentrates a significant number of Adventist institutions. In addition to some churches, there is located the Adventist University Center of São Paulo, where there are several religious events. This way, Pedro remains in a circuit connected to SDA's practices. Besides attending worship services and Sabbath School, he follows the university events and other church events.

Pedro proposed a visit to his church on a Saturday - an unquestionably important day for the Adventist practices and, therefore, in his everyday life organization. It involved visits to the Sabbath School and attendance to worship services. Following Pedro's suggestion, at the end of that visit we interviewed the parish priest, who was introduced to us as someone who had met him at the time of Praça da Sé and who had seen his transformation. The parish priest, in turn, explained some of the fundamental postulates of the SDA as well as how he believed Pedro had reorganized himself.

On the one hand, the parish priest deemed the factor "supernatural" - which, at other times, Pedro described as "miracle" - and, on the other hand, he deemed the "ethical and moral" principles that were taught. It is worth trying to understand some of these principles, which can support having a better picture of Pedro's situation, as well as having a brief historical background of the SDA religion. 

As Capellari (2001, p.45) evidenced, the SDA is considered a parallel religion to the Reformation, creating inside the Protestantism a specific group of religious denominations, which, "born in the 19th century in the U.S., postulate that their doctrines were revealed in a special way by the divine action, being the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Mormon Church and the Jehovah's Witnesses Church the main ones."

When Oliveira Filho (2004) discussed the SDA historical formation, he recovered the construction of its symbolic universe. Born in the messianic movements context in the 19th century, and originated in the U.S., the Adventist communities used to believe in a foreseen date when Messiah's would return to Earth. That episode was known as "the big disappointment". A small group continued searching for explanations of the event and they kept the Advent reference. Based on Ellen White's prophetic visions, the adepts joined themselves and then the formation of the Adventist symbolic universe was guided.

According to the official SDA's email address in Brazil¹⁰, Adventist is a reference to "belief" in Advent, that is, to the belief of a second coming of Jesus to Earth. The parish priest's narrative contributes to this understanding:

As it was said, Saturday, under those conditions, is a very special day for that church. It is when the Sabbath School takes place, involving all the baptized and the school members, the ones who are interested in it and future baptism supporters (Oliveira Filho, 2004). In the Sabbath school, the church benches are divided into classrooms and each classroom has a teacher responsible for leading the study of the day. Pedro guided us towards the church benches which represented his reference classroom and he introduced us as visitors, which is a distinct category from church members and from the ones who are baptized, easily recognizable by the organization form. The experience let evident the proselytism and the welcome form of the religion. After a while spent in the church, we received several notes with welcome words and invitations to study the Bible.

The practice of "Gospel preaching" to other people is shared by Pedro, who, as the other members, plays an important role in the church. The importance of each member of the church, as well as the explanation about the transformation notion within the Adventist symbolic universe, is referred in the following extract of the parish priest's interview:

in the care network circuit Pedro received help, if he got some support, within the SDA, he changed his status to those who have some knowledge to be conveyed to other people, of unique importance, because it means the "only way salvation" for him and for the group that shares the same codes. Religiousity gives sense to a number of practices and it also promotes new challenges, such as keeping yourself within the "ethical and moral" standards exposed by the parish priest. Being able to negotiate Saturdays as a non-working day, for example. In Pedro's case, conciliation is possible because he works at a company whose owner is Adventist. There is also the effort of not eating pork meat - a hard task, since Feijoada and pork steak are regular dishes served in restaurants he likes to eat in Praça da Sé region and where he shares many values with other customers. This way, there will always be the need for negotiation in several ways, since it is about meeting different cultural practices within the same society. As Bhabha (2001) suggests, it may be related to the construction of border spaces that allow dialogue and cultural negotiation.

The street life experience is not denied either by his family members or by the parish priests. On the contrary, it seemed to acquire new meanings as it became Pedro's testimony reinforced by the parish priests' public word, who found in his life history a way of renewing the symbolic efficacy (Lévi-Strauss, 1975) of their church, evoking a personal transformation of the devoted and reinforcing the practices and the values which that group shares.

Let us also recall that the relationship between religiosity and healing processes forms an interesting interface for the analysis of that life course. The issue is complex. Sanchez and Nappo (2007, p.79) have carried out a scientific literature review (of studies indexed in the databases of PubMed and Scielo between 1976 and 2006) on religiosity and spirituality as protection factors for drug use and they concluded that

According to the authors, there is an open field for new researches as the majority of researches found is quantitative and the theme exploration in the Brazilian context could bring new contributions to public health, considering the strong influence of religion in care processes.

Final remarks

As we reconstitute Pedro's life history, its circuits and "pieces" of belonging have become apparent and revealed several alternatives that he could create, even in vulnerability situations. Our collaborator, by sharing codes and symbols, becomes part of certain circuits that surpass care and seem to contribute to building and strengthening interconnected and interdependent networks and identities. The social participation varied forms we observed in Pedro's life course showed us a complex network and movements searching for exchanges in different sectors of society. The participation in the care network services, for example, did not configure itself as the only resource used and it did not mean dependency relationship, which is a situation often attributed to its users. The church, the relationships at Praça da Sé, the family and the work formed different exchange possibilities, helping to build close protection. In that trajectory, religiosity seemed to provide important bases to build collective identity and belonging.

The study of social networks formed by people in permanent presence or interaction with street situation can be enriched if the approach captures, besides the work and housing dimensions, those dimensions of religion, culture, leisure and political participation (in specific social movements). There is a need to understand, in depth, the complexity of the dynamics of social dissociation and of opposed movements to this in order to contribute to building practices that aim at equating the difficulties faced by the social group at issue. It remains the challenge and the need to produce, from dialogue relations, situations which avoid people being forced to live on the streets as well as building collective alternatives.

COLLABORATORS

The authors have worked together throughout the whole paper.

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