Sementes lançadas em terras distantes : o direito à assistência social para a população rural

Abstract

This dissertation seeks to investigate how the right to social assistance for a rural population has been constituted, in order to contribute with elements for the elaboration of social assistance policies directed to this segment. The understanding of social assistance, as a citizen's right and a duty of the State, of a non-contributory nature, is found in the Federal Constitution of 1988 which, together with social security and health, constitutes the Brazilian Social Security. In this sense, the Organic Law of Social Assistance (LOAS), of 1993, establishes, as one of its principles, the equality of rights in the access to the service to the urban and rural populations. The fulfilled research prioritizes the qualitative approach and is guided by Dialectical Historical Materialism. From the perspective of understanding the historical constitution of social assistance for the rural population, a bibliographic research is carried out in the Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations, between 2006 and 2016, seeking to identify the academic productions related to social assistance and the rural environment. In the same way, legislation in force in the context of social assistance are analyzed through documental research in the Federal Constitution of 1988, in the Organic Law of Social Assistance of 1993, in the National Social Assistance Policy (PNAS) and in the Basic Operational (NOB-SUAS), approved respectively in 2004 and 2005, in order to identify how they envisage the realization of the rights of the rural population. In addition, an empirical research is carried out with five users and four professionals in the Unified Social Assistance System (SUAS) located in rural areas, in a municipality in the metropolitan region of Rio Grande do Sul. For the data analysis, the Content Analysis technique was used. As a result, the present study reveals that the right to social assistance for the rural population has been insufficiently constituted, since the precariousness of the social assistance policy, under the aegis of neoliberalism, intensifies in rural areas, since even if the provision of public services in rural areas is historically more recent than in urban areas, as well as the (in) visibility of the rural, as a multidimensional phenomenon, since the working class living in the rural relationship between invisibility and visibility, in dialectically simultaneous processes. The (in) visibility of the rural can be identified from the following dimensions: the brief mention to the rural population in the legislations in the scope of the policy of social assistance, referring to the equity in the access to the urban and rural population, without further deepening; the precariousness of SUAS services in rural areas, since it is historically marked by the absence of social policies; the dependence of rural versus urban for the realization of much of the social rights that must be guaranteed to the rural population; the scarce production of knowledge on the subject. In addition, there is a process of moralization of the social issue, from the point of view of neoconservatism, which gains space in a scenario of capital crisis and deepening of neoliberal premises, which will have a direct impact on social policies, as well as, in rural areas, which is not isolated from the structural relations of contemporary capitalism. Thus, it is necessary to increase the production of knowledge about the subject, in order to guarantee the visibility of the rural; Continuing training for SUAS workers in the rural sector, with courses, seminars and other spaces for discussion about professional activity; and, finally, to consolidate work processes in the field of culture and politics, through a critical reflection with SUAS users on the conditions of social assistance policy and the need to guarantee universal social rights.