Watching and assisting: The territory in primary health care and the rationalization of the event

Abstract

This discussion takes place in the scenario of Brazilian public health. The analysis has addressed the National Policy of Primary Health Care and the National Guidelines for Health Surveillance. The aim is to problematize the way in which the notion of case has been constituted from the political strategies that articulate surveillance/ assistance technologies in the territory of primary health care. In order to do that, we point out the way that the dwelling-territory has enabled the case spatialization as a requirement for stabilization/operationalization of the National Policy of Primary Health Care. The analysis has been grounded on a post-structuralist perspective of social psychology by using the concepts of security device, by Foucault, and territorialization, by Deleuze and Guattari. The public health policies have been analyzed by following the procedures of file selection, reading and analysis. In addition, we have focused on the way that the health care trajectory questions, mobilizes and modifies the relation between territory and access in primary health care.