This article characterizes the process of re-conversion of the social question in Brazil in the context of the neo-liberal project. It analyses the process of depoliticization of the contemporary social question, through the focused social politics in an independent scheme of protection and rights. It emphasizes not only the fragility of such model in the institutional, social and political plans, but also the effects of the segmentation of exclusion, increasing the distributive conflict, between the poor and the almost poor.
focused social politics; poverty; Brazil