A efetivação da política de assistência social junto aos povos originários: uma proposta de análise decolonial sobre o trabalho do serviço social no município de São Gabriel da Cachoeira

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the implementation of the Social Assistance Policy with Indigenous peoples in São Gabriel da Cachoeira (AM), grounded in my experience as a Social Worker at the municipality’s CRAS. Anchored in decoloniality and the community feminisms of Abya Yala and Pindorama, I seek to understand how the coloniality of power, knowledge, and being permeates policy implementation and produces absences, silencing, and tensions in the relationship between the State and Indigenous peoples. Methodologically, the study is based on field diaries, lived experiences, and the critical reconstruction of my professional trajectory; in this process, I develop a critique of the field material I produced, acknowledging my own colonial position as a producer of knowledge. Initially, I present the decolonial theoretical framework and the contributions of racialized feminist authors who destabilize hegemonic narratives on development, care, and social protection. I then discuss the entanglements among capitalism, racism, and Social Assistance in Abya Yala, highlighting the limits of a policy shaped by a colonial-capitalist rationality in responding to the demands of Indigenous peoples. Finally, I analyze scenes from my daily work at the CRAS in São Gabriel da Cachoeira, evidencing challenges such as the fragility of the local social assistance network and linguistic and cultural barriers, while also identifying fissures and possibilities emerging in listening practices, intercultural negotiation, and critique of universalizing approaches. The study offers pathways for a counter-hegemonic professional practice committed to alternative epistemologies and to strengthening Indigenous participation within Social Assistance policies.