“Don't look a gift horse in the mouth”: when a public housing policy violates the way of living of the peasant

Abstract

This article aims to discuss the symbolic violence present in the implementation process of the Minha Casa, Meu Maranhão housing program, analyzing its development, verifying its guidelines and their application, and the attitudes of the beneficiaries after the materialization of the reported violence found in the program house. Considering the rural way of living as intrinsic to their general living conditions, the text analyzes the conception of the housing program created from the Programa Nacional de Habitação Rural (PNHR), demonstrably ineffective in the Northeastern region of the country and far apart from the reality of the beneficiaries. Based on field research conducted from 2015 to 2019, in Pequizeiro, a village of the Belágua municipality, Maranhão, this article discusses the process of appropriation of the new home by the contemplated families, analyzing modifications and identifying them, as well as analyzing the different uses of the environments, which change according to the needs of each family nucleus. Based on the study of post-occupation physical interventions, it concludes that the program is incompatible with the local reality, and the disregard and violence practiced on the peasant way of life have their answers in the interventions in the house and its surroundings that seek to restore the necessary conditions for its social reproduction.