Abstract
The aim of this article is to analyze the political perceptions and the electoral choices of the residents of a poor neighborhood of São Paulo called Brasilândia based on a series of in-depth interviews conducted between 2011 and 2013. Would these individuals relate their social ascent to the public policies implemented during the Lula Era? Would they be lulistas ? If so, what would this mean, and what impact would it have on their perceptions of the Workers' Party (PT)? According to the data collected, the motivations for having preferences for the PT and/or Lula were not of a material nature, but rather of a symbolic one, since interviewees demonstrated a strong identification with the poor population that lives in the Brazilian Northeast. However, in spite of such identification, adherence to the PT and to lulismo in São Paulo’s poor neighborhoods has important fragilities.
lulismo; petismo; São Paulo; political culture