Pessoas em situação de rua e seus cães: fragmentos de união em histórias de fragmentação

• Ano de defesa: 2015
• Autor(a) principal: Cunha, Juliana Gomes da
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo; BR; Mestrado em Psicologia; UFES; Programa de Pós-Graduação em Psicologia
• Palavras-chave em Português: Personal relationships; Bonding human-pet; Human-animal interaction; Homeless persons; Relacionamento interpessoal; Relacionamento homem-cão; Pessoas em situação de rua; Redes de relações sociais; Pessoas desabrigadas; Animais de estimação; Cão; Psicologia; 159.9
• Link de acesso: http://repositorio.ufes.br/handle/10/1526

Interest in the relationship between humans and dogs has been increasingly reflected in scientific production, although researches are still insufficient in the Latin American context, and therefore in Brazil. Accordingly, when focusing on the specific relationship between dogs and homeless persons, the insufficiency is even more apparent, even though it is a phenomenon that raises interesting issues of both individual and social nature and public policy. Therefore, this study is justified by its contribution to elucidate the issue, given that its overall objective was: to investigate, identify and understand relationships established by pairs of humans and dogs that have the streets as the main environment in which their routines are based on. These criteria were used for the selection of participants, besides a minimum age of 18 years, and the interviews were carry out with 12 people who were in public places of the cities of Vitória, Serra and Vila Velha. Open-ended questions and a semi-structured interview were used in order to: collect socioeconomic data of the participants; understand aspects of interpersonal relationships of participants; access stories about parts of the life stories of homeless involving relationship with dogs; and finally, gathering information about the use of support services to the homeless population, either in the presence or absence of dogs. In addition, data from informal and voluntary conversation between the researcher and three employees of Specialized Social Approach of the city of Vitória was used. Then, the data collected was divided into five major items, which were thoroughly analyzed and discussed. These items are: Socio-demographic and economic characterization of the participants; General characterization of relationships; Views of participants about the dogs in their lives; Individual and social repercussions of the relationship; and "About homeless and dogs: the" last bond"?". After the analysis it was possible to conclude that the relationship between humans and dogs, despite maintaining similarities that sometimes cause them to be compared or equated with friendships or family relationships, is of a different kind. Furthermore, when the human in the human-dog pair is homeless, some peculiarities are quite obvious, such as difficulty of animal separation, whether momentary (e.g. when they wander through the cities) or lasting (e.g. when they go to homeless shelters); when it is not possible to take the animal along with them. At last, it is important to highlight the statement that the dog may be the only and/or last bond that the homeless person maintains, considering that some participantes mentioned rearrangements in their relathionships after they began living in the streets.