<b>Functional and symbolic territories perceived by young people involved with illicit drugs in the Favela Santa Lucia (housing estate) Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais State, Brazil

Abstract

The circulation of young people who deal with or use illicit drugs may be quite a rich study to explain deeper and better the conditions of the individuals´s dignity in urban metropolitan estates. Data was collected by three researchers during three psychoanalytical sessions involving 32 young people who deal with drugs in three different areas of the Favela Santa Lucia (housing estate), between August and December 2010 (GUERRA; FRANÇA NETO, 2012; GUERRA; PINHEIRO, 2011). In order to protect and safeguard the interviewees, only now data could be analyzed to investigate the young people´s perception with regard to the appropriation of both functional and symbolic territories, to their movements and relationships with the state´s capital city and its immediate surroundings. The young people interviewed adopted a certain conduct and specific strategies which were prudent and/or daring in nature, within their movements that may be translated in judgment and safety. These measures have proven effective for some of the young people who managed to be alive in spite of the presence of a drug network and all that it entails. There are sets of imminent uncertainties that may lead to the loss of some individuals in this group.