Care, subjectivity, and rights: confronting the COVID-19 pandemic in vulnerable territories in the state of São Paulo

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic emerges in an already destabilized neoliberal global economy in an intense crisis of the rights guarantee system, exacerbating social inequality. The valorization of intersubjectivity and care as a theoretical-methodological strategy in the sociohistorical perspective takes us to understand the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the rights guarantee system by the experience of populations in social vulnerability. In-depth interviews and participant observation obtained information about two territories, Vila dos Pescadores in Cubatão and Eastern São Paulo, having depth hermeneutic as a reference for analysis. Results indicated the need to strengthen public policies under the reference the rights guarantee system and community networks, which proved to potently face the consequences of social inequality and the syndemic. Thus, we understand that care, in its various perspectives, should follow ethical-political and participatory horizons.