“Gambiarras” políticas e acomodações necessárias: gerencialismo neoliberal e políticas públicas para as mulheres em Petrolina-PE

Abstract

The present assay analyzes the way in which feminist assumptions and those of neoliberal managerialist style are operationalized in the process of applying policies for women in Petrolina-. The main purpose was to understand how notions dear to theory and feminist political praxis are performatized in these political actions and how they acquire a distinct character as they need to be allocated in a neoliberal model of public policy management. In order to account for this proposal, the Latourian method of social reassembly was used through the formation of an association of the mediators involved in this process. The senses attributed by the social actors to their political practices were evidenced through ethnographic work and interviews. This methodological arrangement allowed to elect some central actors in these policies, as well as to understand the connections of sense and political arrangements made to carry out their projects. In this sense, the central characteristic of these arrangements was the preponderance of coping with violence against women. The operationalization model of actions with this focus was based on concerns focused on specific cases and on formats disconnected from gender and feminist debates which support, at least at national level, policies in this regard. In this operationalization, as well, the essentialized identity conceptions that backed policies and the models of technified and individualized empowerment were raised as problematic. Finally, it was possible to perceive how this peculiar way of applying the referred conceptions was articulated to a neoliberal managerialist model of public policy management, which has distorted demands and notions dear to feminisms, unleashing "discursive accommodation" and political "improvisations".