The objectification of unemployed workers and the poor people into infamous subjects and the discourse of/about the Emergency Aid in the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to understand the objectification process of unemployed subjects into infamous subjects, in highlighted statements of the pronouncement by the economy minister, Paulo Guedes, about extension of Emergency Aid. We analyzed the enunciative forms through which the statement “vagabond” was constructed in relation to this declaration; why this term appears and not others in this place; how this relates to the knowledge that emerges from the idea of idleness, considering the associative domain it maintains with the opposition of worker and the association of it with poor. For that, we take the concept of discursive regularity, biopower and infamous men, by Michel Foucault (2003; 2008a; 2008b), and the discussions about the vagabond subject, by Robert Castel (1993; 1998; 2000), among other authors. The analysis addressed how unemployment causes (self)exclusion, reinforcing divisions and inequalities within the group of subjects who identify withg proletariat subjectivity. Vagabondage represents a major social problem, fueled by the instability of the salary condition, representing a rupture between the work relationship, while precariousness generates exclusion. The punishment for the infamous is also the deprivation of what everyone can, except those who don't deserve it.