Abstract
This article presents reflections on a Brazilian Federal Government taskforce targeting to register riverside communities in cash-transfer programs, such as Bolsa Família and Bolsa Verde. The taskforce took place in the Amazonian state of Pará, an initiative in which I participated both as a researcher and as a representative of the Federal State. Under the motto “The State goes where poverty is”, the Active Search Strategy intends to find citizens considered to be “invisible” and register them in social programs of the Federal Government. The paper discusses these encounters between the State and its margins, going deeper and touching upon tensions and obstacles in bridging the margins of Brasília and of the Amazon River. Likewise the Amazon River in its flooding season, this encounter reshapes and transforms the boundaries of the State with its margins.
Keywords
Active Search Strategy; margins; public policies; State