Between the wanderings and the crossings in the streets of the city: territories and drug use by homeless people

Abstract

This article is part of an ethnography completed in 2016. It proposes to discuss the territories of appropriate drugs by the homeless people living in the central region of Belo Horizonte, the systems of meanings, the uses of drugs and their symbolic representation. The organization of the urban spaces of the central region of the city by the drug-laden street dwellers follows its own logic, due to the meanings attributed, the way of perception of the city and its functionality to access resources necessary for its life condition. The understanding of the organization of urban spaces for drug use and lifestyles was made possible by the mapping carried out together with dialog partners and participants in this research in the “wanderings” and “crossings”. It was also found that the definitions of the physical limits of the city serve to demarcate the inequalities and social differences and support the policies of prohibitionist drugs and the interventions of the organs of social control.