In a contemporary context, highway wanderers can be seen as one of the most radical expressions of a break from socially fixed niches, travelling on foot along Brazil's highways and, when emergency needs must be met, seeking support from institutional care services. This study seeks to identify which institutional practices are provided to highway wanderers by social services, based on reports by managers of such services. The research was carried out at four institutional care services in the state of São Paulo , through the application of semi-structured interviews. The results show that the institutional practices provided to highway wanderers by social services include disciplinary techniques involving power and knowledge applied by means of procedures and rules that impose obedience along with an inspection of their bodies and a search of their belongings. In conclusion, the social service practices that are provided to highway wanderers become strategic tools of power and control over the bodies and itinerant lives, seeking to subsume such a subjectifying process within disciplinary techniques.
Institutional analysis; Wanderers; Social services