Implicações psicológicas da pobreza na vida do povo latino-americano

Abstract

This article aims to present reflections undertaken on the emergence of poverty category and its possibilities of dialogue with Psychology, considering the Latin American and Brazilian scenario. For that purpose, it starts with a discussion of poverty from a multidimensional approach, which highlights the impossibility of capturing this phenomenon only from a monetary point of view. Rather, the need to think on the psychological, symbolic and political realities experienced by subjects in these conditions must be considered in the agenda. Poverty, a manifestation of the marginalization process Latin American people has been submitted, contributes to the development of peculiar forms of psyche structuring. Despite the fact that poverty and the social reality of Latin America constitute the human psyche in a unique way, this individual must be perceived as a potential and growing one, not deleting his ability to confront and transform an oppressive social reality. Thus, in this bibliographical study psychological categories emerging from poverty conditions are presented, such as the Ideology of Submission and Resignation (Góis, 2008), Culture of Poverty (Martín-Baró, 1998), Culture of Silence (Freire, 1980) and Fatalism Syndrome (Martín-Baró, 1998). These categories demonstrate the ability of individuals to (re) act before life conditions which are painful to them. Consequently, the observation of these categories helps emphasizing the possible and necessary implication of psychology to the subjects who are in conditions of oppression, denaturalizing concepts and announcing discoveries from the subjects’ viewpoint.