Bolsa Família program and the recomposition of strategies to overcome hunger in Brazil

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the history of Bolsa Família program (BF), from its creation in 2003 up to its extinction and replacement by Auxílio Brasil program, and its further recreation in 2023. Within this history, income transfer strategies for overcoming hunger and poverty in Brazil are highlighted, notably in conjunction with a critical analysis of the political-economic scenarios, including ideological disputes that historically contribute to setting up public policies and the social field. In the course of achieving the proposed objective, the analysis is crossed by reflections on the place of the social dimension in a reality in which democracy has been on the rocks in recent right-wing, neo-conservative and neo-fascist governments. The struggle in defense of democracy has been present in the more recent period, and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva government, from 2023 onwards, is leading the country towards a new phase of Brazilian politics by placing the progressive perspective as the path to economic and social development. It rekindles possibilities for the social sphere, through the resumption of BF, which, through conditional income transfer, reveals its transversal character as a mean of promoting access to citizenship and a strategy for overcoming hunger in Brazil.