Sensitivity and poverty, between class experiences and practices

Abstract

Appealing to the relations of proximity and distance, closeness and openness, as reflected in the experience of everyday life, in this paper we study the sensitivity whichis expressed by the middle class in relation to poverty. To this end, we propose to study the perceptions and emotions of the residents of the city of San Luis (Argentina) on “welfare recipients”, in the "Programa de Seguridad Comunitaria y Proteccion Civil", seeking to understand the ways of looking as a social practice, architecture and architect of the world. To do this, we return to in-depth interviews we conducted for doctoral research. First, we show that beyond the differences in the narratives, class common sense prevails. In a second step, we account for the effects of this look. Thus, starting from a concern about “what is seen” and “how it feels” in relation to the “welfare recipients”, we face the dual task of evaluating the gaze of the world and and their potential impact on social structure.