Travail social et les rapports de classe dans la mise en œuvre du programme Bolsa Família au Brésil [Social work and class relations in the implementation of the Bolsa Família programme in Brazil]

Abstract

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.