Os donos da morte: políticas neoliberais na cidade de São Paulo

Abstract

This study stems from an interest in examining mortuary practices in the contemporary world. To this end, authors such as Rodrigues (2006), Morin (1975 and 1997) and Ariès (2014) provided the foundation for addressing the socio-historical issue of death in the West and the influence of the Catholic religion in that context. In nineteenth-century Brazil, mortuary practices together with Brazilian funeral legislation confronted the changing perception of society at the time. With the late-twentieth-century rediscovery of the Cemitério dos Pretos Novos in Rio de Janeiro and, in the twenty-first century, that of the Cemitério dos Aflitos in the Liberdade neighborhood—sites where people considered marginal to society were buried during the Brazilian slavery period. I provide an overview of neoliberal thought and examine its penetration into the State, both at the national level in the 1990s and in the twenty-first century within the municipality of São Paulo, where then-mayoral candidate João Doria declared his intention to privatize cemeteries and other public facilities. Alongside this, I analyze the overhaul of the city’s funeral legislation, which had to be amended to make concession auctions viable. In response to the City’s move to grant the service to the private sector, a surge of reports from various broadcasters could be observed. From this coverage, outlets were selected that featured citizens who had experienced problems with the concession. Bourdieu’s notion of symbolic violence is also introduced as a lens through which to view the funeral service issue. For this purpose, the qualitative methodological resources employed were the collection of oral histories, interviews with researchers about the subject, and former manager of the municipality, accompanied by a bibliographic review