I started working as a professor of psychology at UNESP’s [São Paulo State University] Assis campus in the interior of São Paulo in 1977. I had just finished my undergraduate degree at the same institution and was doing a master’s degree at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo [PUC-SP], studying children living in orphanages. I lived in Marília, where my wife was also a university professor. The two cities are 77 kilometers apart, a distance I traveled daily, as well as regular trips to São Paulo for my master’s degree, which I completed in the early 1980s.
It was during this time that I started noticing the homeless people who traveled along the Rachid Rayes highway, which connects Assis to Marília. These people spend their lives walking the roadsides, carrying their few earthly possessions in worn-out bags, backpacks, or handcarts. The vast majority are men. I started leaving home earlier so I could stop on the roadside and talk to them before teaching at university. I was 27 years old. I would approach and introduce myself as a university professor, but I did so with great fear — I didn’t know how people would react. I wasn’t always successful, many refused to talk to me.
– Wanderer (2006), a documentary by Cao Guimarães
I started doing my PhD in social psychology in 1982, also at PUC-SP, investigating the psychological dynamics of authoritarian ideologies. At the same time, I started to realize that homeless wanderers were a little explored field of research in Brazil. After finishing my PhD, I decided to transform my curiosity into a research project that has lasted more than 30 years. During this time, I did several studies on the living conditions of homeless wanderers in the interior of São Paulo State, publishing two books and 11 chapters in other works, as well as several articles. I have supervised more than 40 undergraduate, master’s, doctorate, and postdoctorate research projects on the topic. Since 1996, several of these studies and others of my own on the subject have been funded by FAPESP, including my current project, which will be completed in November.
Over time, I have developed a method of approach that allows me to interact with most of the people I try to talk to. I go alone or accompanied by other researchers and students, and I park my car on the roadside a short distance away. I always offer the person a bottle of water, but the most important thing is to offer your hand when greeting them. They tell me that for them, a handshake is harder to find than a meal or a place to sleep. They face constant prejudice and neglect in their day-to-day lives. They are invisible people. There are no specific public policies designed for them. The great challenge in this field of study, in fact, is the lack of references to this population in official statistics.
These wanderers live exclusively on the roads, sleeping at gas stations, under bridges or overpasses, at bus stops, or in the middle of the woods, covering the ground with a piece of plastic and themselves with a blanket. They always walk against the flow of traffic. They usually get food from restaurants, either donated by the owners or paid for by truck drivers. Those with handcarts or bicycles usually carry groceries and basic kitchen utensils, then improvise a stove to prepare their own meals. They avoid cities and only go into them in cases of extreme necessity.
Data collected by the researcher could support the creation of public policies for homeless itinerant workers and wanderersEliete Correia Soares
Homeless itinerant workers, on the other hand, move from city to city, spending a short time in each — days or weeks at most — before moving onto the next. To travel from one city to another, they walk along the highways like the wanderers, or they take a bus, with tickets offered by municipal social welfare services. To survive, they make use of charity organizations and often interact with people living on the streets. They also use what they call “achaques” or “mangueios” — a way of approaching people to ask for money or food. Homeless itinerant workers do not refer to this as begging, which is something they consider humiliating. Instead, they say, it is a way of asking for help with dignity and cunning, by constructing an elaborate narrative, which they see as a more “artful” approach, according to what they tell me in interviews.
Wanderers are always on their own. They say that loneliness is the biggest challenge they face. Some of them do odd jobs, mainly weeding, gardening, and other manual tasks, such as in sugarcane fields or pottery workshops. Professional opportunities are scarce, and when they do appear, they often offer conditions close to slavery.
Some of them tell me that they take to the road due to the difficulties of staying in one city, because they lost their job, or because of low wages. For others, it is because they have suffered trauma, such as the death of a loved one. There are also cases that in the field of psychology would be categorized as mental illness. Some people are on the road because they are delusional, usually with delusions of grandeur. They have assigned themselves some great mission, which can only be accomplished through their journey.
Once, on the Washington Luís highway, I met a man pulling a handcart full of many things, including a dog. He spoke Spanish, telling me that he had left Argentina on foot. After traveling through numerous municipalities, he arrived in Marília and stayed at a city intersection for two weeks. He set up a tent there, in a secluded area by the roadside, and improvised a table and a small fire that he used to prepare meals. He said he was on a mission to spread peace around the world. He was calm and felt fulfilled. He walked, traveled, and met people along the way.
In 2005, I defended a postdoctorate on homeless itinerant workers and wanderers, analyzing them as a form of contemporary nomadism. In my research, I looked at aspects of their daily lives, such as alcohol consumption and sociability networks.
Today, I am no longer afraid to approach them. Over the last three decades, I have never had any problems or been threatened, and nowadays, very few reject me when I reach out. In November, I will complete a survey on the challenges and potential improvements in this population’s living conditions. One of the aims of the project is to propose a public policy to the São Paulo state government that aims to help itinerant workers and wanderers. The first step is to do a census of this population. The results of my survey will tell us the number of people living in this situation, providing a more comprehensive view of their profiles, as well as their main needs and the problems they face.
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