We conducted an ethnographic study on the construction of child care in everyday family living in a poor neighborhood of Salvador, seeking to integrate concerns of psychology with the anthropological discussion about person. We used participant observation and interviews. Taking as starting point the reflections of Ayres, we argue that care involves ongoing construction of projects of person in a framework of power relations. The research results identified the centrality of the daily work with the body to achieve the goal of having an educated and nature dominated child, and these concerns are central to the construction of the person. We advocate the importance of thinking in the social construction of the person - including contributions from anthropological research - to build a research agenda in psychology that addresses cultural diversity.
care; children; person; kinship
