Joao Balieiro Bardy

JOAO BALEIRO BARDY, then a graduate student at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was approved funding in April 2025 to aid research on “The Social Life of Generic Drugs: State, Market and Health in Brazil,” supervised by Dr. Rodrigo Toniol. Funding supported an eight-month ethnographic study of the social life of generic drugs in Brazil. The project examined how value is enacted as generic medicines move through regulatory, market, and public health domains. Fieldwork combined interviews with key policymakers and regulators involved in the creation of Brazil’s generic drug policy, follow up research with industry actors in São Paulo, and an extended ethnography at the Ernani Agricola Municipal Health Center (CMS EA) in Rio de Janeiro. These engagements revealed how the policy was shaped not only by concerns over access to medicines but also by broader economic reforms and efforts to reorganize the national pharmaceutical market. Within CMS EA, a 367 respondent questionnaire and in-depth interviews with selected users illuminated how medicines function as everyday health resources, therapeutic lifelines, and tools of community care. Collaboration with clinic staff and a small student research team enabled sustained engagement with diverse users and their therapeutic trajectories. The findings refine the project’s central question by showing how generic drugs enact multiple forms of value across Brazil’s health ecology, linking state policy, market dynamics, and lived experiences of care.