The Community Health Agent and the Anthropologist: The Ethnographic Path in the Edge of SUS (or SUS “da ponta” as Referred in Portuguese)

Abstract

In this article, I present the description of the Unified Health System (SUS as in Portuguese) experienced in the Parque das Torres neighborhood, located in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais. I focus on analyzing the “edge” of SUS, and the consequences of management modes in daily activities in a Basic Health Unit. The discussion presented in the article is based on the ethnography of the doctoral course research, in progress, held in the Program of Postgraduate Studies in Social Anthropology at the University of São Paulo, where I study the area of tension between the legislated SUS and the SUS experienced in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. In this research, I have followed the daily routine of the Health Department of Juiz de Fora, interviewing health managers and investigating users and health professionals who experience the “edge” SUS. From the experience I had as a community health agent, between 2003 and 2009, in the Parque das Torres neighborhood, I use a double positioning and a double temporality, sometimes speaking from the role of researcher, sometimes resorting to memories of the work of a community health agent. For this purpose, I resort to the discussions of Michel de Certeau, Michael Herzfeld, and Didier Fassin, whose reflections are related to the given subject, and should, therefore, support the theoretical dimension of this work.