ABSTRACT
This chapter briefly reviews some studies that have been invested in investigating ‘the question of Brazil’, or the peculiarities of the ‘Brazilian nation’. Following the brief account of historical and contemporary interpretations of Brazil, it explores the implementation of conditional cash transfers as part of Brazilian government’s goal of eradicating extreme poverty. It looks at some understandings about these social programs in Brazil geared towards direct distribution of income, and what makes them acceptable tools of antipoverty policies. Following the narration of different stories about the impact of the Programa Bolsa Família [Family Stipend Program] on Brazilian people’s lives, it seeks to tie them together within a discussion about citizenship and about the notion of eradication of poverty developed as an effort to organize the history of Brazil and to coherently represent its past, present, and future. It concludes with a discussion on the images of the ‘future’ that have been promoted by these policies and the narratives that legitimize them, and possibility of the ‘return’ to the future of groups of people who have been displaced from their territories as well as from history.
