Pedrinho, religiosity and prostitution: the managements of an ambivalent young man

Abstract

Studies about youth and courses life takes show the ambivalence between the desire to be and stay young and imagination about the “dangers” posed by this group. Several discussions focus on the discussing problems involving poor young people, especially those who use drugs, towards whom the approach is imbued by absence, criminalization or medicalization. From a social understanding of the subject and the deconstruction of stereotypes downtrodden in the social imagination, we seek to identify formal and informal social networks of young people claiming to use illegal drugs, on the urban outskirts of a midsize city of Sao Paulo State. Therefore, a two-year field study, based on ethnographic research, was conducted with those who claimed to need or to have needed some aid due to drug use. It presents the story of Pedrinho and his way of getting support focused on his mother, on a fellow prostitute and on two religious leaders, a pastor and a pai de santo. The analysis of social networks, especially those of a religious nature, highlights the ambivalence present and reveals the support provided in regards to the people, deconstructing discourses about the “salvation” of drug users through faith. The informal nature of his networks demonstrates managements brought by life, allowing us to nominate Pedrinho as part of a possible reality transcending formal institutions of aid, which did not offer consistent responses to his reality.