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Research Areas

1. Culture, Identity and the Body

This research area investigates the multiple interconnections between culture, identityand the bodyin the context of diverse social practices. The members of this group consider processes of identification and self-identification of individuals and groups through specific forms of sociability, as well as examining the role of dynamics of material and symbolic production in the construction of identity. This area also focuses on the development of a reflection that recuperates relationships between bodily and technical disciplines and language invarious fields of social experience, such as art, religion, science and medicine. In more specific terms, the studies undertaken in this area cover the following themes:
 
  1. Identityand territory;
  2. Artistic production (cinema, literature) and social representations;
  3. Practices in health (biomedicine, popular and alternative practices, experiences of illness and cure);
  4. Religionand daily life;
  5. Production and use of biotechnology;
  6. Contexts and forms of useof psychoactive substances.

Associated professors:

  • Antônio da Silva Câmara
  • Edward John Baptista das Neves MacRae
  • Elena Calvo Gonzalez
  • Iara Maria de Almeida Souza
  • Jorge Luis Bezerra Nóvoa 
  • Leonardo Fernandes Nascimento
  • Lídia Maria Pires Soares Cardel
  • Maria Gabriela Hita
  • Mauro Castelo Branco de Moura
  • Miriam Cristina Marcilio Rabelo
  • Paulo César Borges Alves

2. Crime, Punishmentand Human Rights

This research stream includes six areas of sociological reflection regarding crime, social control and punishment: (a) the sociocultural and legal definitions of crimes  and their material and symbolic implications, the motivations, interactions and decisions present in the practice of violent or other crimes; (b) patterns, types, forms and effects of victimization – direct and indirect, primary and secondary, multiple and repeated –, with emphasis on social processes of structuring, informal protections, moral significations and forms of protection of victims of crimes; (c) responses of the State and processes of criminalization, patterns of public and private policing, public security policies, the structure and dynamics of mechanisms of formal and informal justice; (d) practices related to the production, sale and use of illegal psychoactive substances taking into account the impacts of prohibitionist policies on the structuring of the drug market, criminalization of poor and afro-descendent workers and the increase in lethal violence in society; (e) the organization, dynamics and culture of prisons, prison violence and gangs, policies of imprisonment and their effects on the control of crime and reintegration of detainees; (f) the social repertoire of civil rightsand inequalities, the connections between the collective approval of violence and institutional violence, the violation of the body and the promotion of human rights
The investigative efforts of these themes is in constant contact with regional, national and international schemes for studies into these themes, in addition to making their evident interrelations visible and emphasizing their multi and interdisciplinary character. Its mission is to generate new ways of apprehending these phenomena, making the production and circulation of scientific knowledge possible.

Associated professors:

  • Clóvis Roberto Zimmermann
  • Eduardo Paes-Machado
  • Edward John Baptista das Neves MacRae
  • Luiz Claudio Lourenço
  • Mariana Possas

3. Democracy, the Stateand Social Movements 

The research in this stream deals with contemporary democracy and processes of  globalization, seeking to understand the political participation that occurs in this sphere through social movements and political struggles, which involves political and cultural rights, and relationships with political parties. It is also concerned with understanding political institutions in democratic contexts, the processes of production of public policy and subnational specificities. It considers the theme of the elites, their theories, critiques and current situationsand analyzes the repercussions for the production of political though tin Brazil and on the politics of national and state elites. Thematic areas are: 1) Contemporary Democracy, Globalization, Social Movements and Political Contestation; 2) Institutions, Public Policy and Elites; 3). Media, Political Behaviorand Political Culture.

Associated professors:

  • Alvino Oliveira Sanches Filho
  • Anete Brito Leal Ivo
  • Antônio da Silva Câmara
  • Antônio Jorge Fonseca Sanches de Almeida
  • Denise Vitale
  • Jorge Luis Bezerra Nóvoa 
  • Lídia Maria Pires Soares Cardel
  • Maria Victoria Espiñeira Gonzalez
  • Mauro Castelo Branco de Moura
  • Paulo Fábio Dantas Neto
  • Ruthy Nádia Laniado
  • Valdemar Ferreira de Araujo Filho

4. Labor and Social Inequality

To develop theoretical and empirical studies regarding labor and its historical and conceptual transformations, understanding it as a fundamental reference for the analysis of the social reproductionof workers, the production of poverty, and of social inequality and vulnerability. It seeks to bring together studies into the organization/processes of labor and the labor market and diverse types of social inequality, for example studies into poverty and regional development, in urban and rural areas, highlighting the role of the State and its public and social policies; as well as analyzing the relationships between labor and the field of reproductionof workers in the private sector – where the family occupies a central position – and in the public sphere – of responsibility of the State and of other solidarity networks that have assumed this role. It also includes diverse dimensions of social inequality beyond labor, seeking to explore both specificities in terms of interconnections of dynamics of gender, generations, and class and race relations, both at the theoretical levelandin the context of empirical studies. This stream is constituted by four main areas:
  1. LABOR AND POWER RELATIONS: Studies into the historical transformations of labor processes and the work environment, of the labor market, of forms of power and the resistance of workers, of unions and other forms of collective action, and of social and worker’s rights.
  2. LABOR AND SOCIAL QUESTIONS: Studies into laborand the historical forms of social constitution, reproduction of inequalities, and of the conceptions and configurations of poverty and its main indicators and of social and public policy.
  3. LABOR AND SOCIAL REPRODUCTION: Studies into labor, family and solidarity networks.
  4. GENDER, GENERATIONSand RACE: Studies into youth, the elderly and ethno-racial relations.

Associated professors:

  • Alda Britto da Motta 
  • Anete Brito Leal Ivo
  • Clóvis Roberto Zimmermann
  • Inaiá Maria Moreira de Carvalho 
  • Iracema Brandão Guimarães
  • Jair Batista da Silva
  • Leonardo Fernandes Nascimento
  • Maria da Graça Druck de Faria 
  • Maria Gabriela Hita
  • Paula Cristina da Silva Barreto
  • Selma Cristina Silva de Jesus

 

 
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