Reflections on racism in health care and monitoring by the Bolsa Família Program

Abstract

This study sought to analyze the narratives of primary healthcare providers in the municipality of Rio de Janeiro about people monitored by the Bolsa Família Program based on the concepts of racism and intersectionality. A participatory approach was adopted in this qualitative and evaluative research. Focus groups, and hermeneutic groups and an evaluation meeting were held. For each group, narratives were constructed by synthesizing the core arguments in participants’ discourse. Care for families monitored by health conditionalities is permeated by the notion of otherness. Moral judgments are produced regarding people, seeing them as lazy and irresponsible and blaming women and disqualifying them as mothers. The structure of the produced narratives shows the racism sustaining them. Genderized racism denies the mothers of children in the Bolsa Família the status of humanity and women. Discomfort exists toward signs of female beauty, which are considered superfluous and evidence of misuse of the program, shoing the desire to control women’s bodies and naturalize the precariousness of their material life situations. The reproduced institutional racism impacts care as it reaffirms vulnerabilities. Unveiling racism in the narratives constitutes a tool to oppose it, enabling reflections, transforming practices, and contributing to the construction of anti-racist public policies.