Entre o caos e a dignidade : a Defensoria Pública da União em Sergipe e o auxílio emergencial na pandemia de COVID-19

Abstract

This dissertation presents the Anthropology of Institutions's perspective and the role of bureaucracy to position the Federal Public Defender's Office in the context of the justice system institutions, whose mission is to provide underprivileged and vulnerable citizens access to justice. In this sense, it is important to locate its role in the discussion on democracy, access to justice and functional representation, as well as to discourse its emergence and the forces that have been driving its institutional rise since then. The anthropological research stems from a privileged position as a federal agency employee, being that I am a Sociologist at the DPU-SE, using the methodological resources of autoethnography and also semi-structured interviews on adjustments in the bureaucratic work routines in this unit, in view of the necessary and abrupt adoption of remote work due to the social isolation measures imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition, the pandemic itself gave rise to an unprecedented demand that had to be absorbed by the institution: the claims related to Emergency Aid in the years 2020 and 2021 that were rejected by the Federal Government. Acting on this new demand was also the object of analysis in this dissertation, seeking to understand how bureaucratic discretion and the use of technology impacted access to justice, in the context of the health crisis and economic crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.