“PÉ NA COVA”, OLHO NA CASA: Um estudo de caso do programa Minha Casa, Minha Vida em Açailândia – MA

Abstract

This paper presents a case study of the Minha Casa Minha Vida Program (PMCMV): the Jardim Aulidia Housing Complex or “Pé na Cova” (as it is known, due to its proximity to a cemetery) in the years 2022 to 2024. The neighborhood is located in the city of Açailândia, in Maranhão, with approximately 75,000 m2 (7.5 ha), 2.5 km from the city center, composed of almost 3,000 (three thousand) houses. The research began in April 2022 with floating observation in order to obtain the first information that would allow us to discover the implicit rules that moved the housing complex. In 2023, adopting participant observation, from a close and inside perspective, allowing greater proximity to our interlocutors so that we could know, analyze and understand how the relationships, use and appropriation of space occurred, as well as the nuances of housing policies inserted in the neighborhood. Furthermore, the methodological references made it possible to perceive the socio-spatial segregation of the territory where the complex is located in the scenario. Likewise, the presence of stereotypes such as stigmas was noted, characterizing them negatively in relation to other groups and individuals from other neighborhoods in the city. In this context, we were able to perceive that stigmatization also occurred in intra-neighborhood relationships, so that the inhabited block referenced the profile of the neighborhood, as well as the resident, among the residents. Consequently, we also perceived the existence of an internal territorial hierarchy in the complex based on the differences between the residents themselves in the actions of distinction, which varied between changes in the infrastructure, as well as the presence of elements that added economic value to the aesthetics of the property and the inhabited area. To this end, observations and conversations together with theoretical concepts allowed us to identify uses and appropriations of space based on the analysis of the social relations of the actors who reside in the housing complex, thus making it possible to understand how the social dynamics of the neighborhood are developed.