Between Assistance and Health Promotion
Based on the contextualization of the Brazilian political and economic history, where charity and philanthropic practices, as well as social movements, are part of it, this article aims to show how a humanitarian intervention is built. It is also based on an ethnography of a Brazilian shantytown where a health care unit belonging to Doctors without Borders is set. It is focused on the contribution of Doctors without Borders for the setting of the local Family Health Program policy, as well as on the influence of aspects of the Brazilian culture, such as social representations of the population about rights and health on its intervention. The study is set in an anthropology of the humanitarian aid since, considering local social, economic, and cultural realities, the plurality of this intervention is emphasized.