A história de Davi: metamorfoses na identidade e o (pós)abrigamento

Abstract

This dissertation is about a study to understand the identity metamorphosis of those who lived in shelters. It used the life story narrative methodology, so the subject of this research could tell his story. The empirical material of this study is about the narrative of a person we will call Davi. The construction of this dissertation text was divided in three big moments: first, it was realized a bibliographic study about the production and discussions about this theme, and, from there, was built the first chapter, a historical contextualization about the theme, that conforms an explanation of the practices and policies of the residential care for children and adolescents over the history of Brazil until nowadays. The second part shows the theoretical discussion that supports this dissertation. In this sense, it was brought the discussions about identity proposed by Ciampa (1987), and their updates, with collaborations of Almeida (2005) and Lima (2010), besides others Critical Social Psychology authors. The last part is about Davi’s narrative story, as well as the analysis and discussions built from it. In this stage, an attempt was made to interweave the two moments before the narrative, like the threads of a fabric that intertwine between the plot and the warp. Davi’s story sets the singularity of a life full of struggle, in the constant search of building his autonomy. He lived in the shelter throughout his childhood and returned to his family when he was 10-years-old, after 7 years without getting in touch with them. After returning to his family, he had to work since he was a little boy to help to sustain his home, as well as asking for money at traffic lights and living in the streets sometimes. Throughout his story, some other characters appear: the caregiver-responsible-for-the-family, who shows up during his childhood, the worker-scrap-collector-boy and the traffic-light-juggler-boy, the graffiti, the rap-song-writer, the hip-hop-culture-dancer, the athlete, the husband-and-family-father, the social-educator, the advertising-person and the activist-for-the-rights-of-children-and-adolescents. Davi reports a story of struggle for the construction of his autonomy, a story that, although singular, expresses so many other silenced stories of people who live or lived in shelters.