Research Lines
The Anthropology of Science and Technique
Science as cosmological constructions. The ethnography of scientific practice. Research on techniques of different groups and social actors via the intersubjective relationships between humans and non-humans, such as animals and artifacts.
The Anthropology of Politics, Power, and Law
The ethnography of politics, power, and justice. Comparative studies of conflict-resolution processes involving power relations and the socio-cultural aspects of hierarchical structures.
The Anthropology of Peasantry, Traditional Peoples, and the Environment
Concepts and theoretical traditions in the study of peasantry. Classic and recent ethnographies on the theme. Contemporary transformations of the peasantry.
The Anthropology of the Body and Health
The social construction of body and person, processes of illness, treatment, and cure, the management of human living conditions. Focus on ethnography and its theoretical implications for the understanding of these phenomena.
Urban Anthropology, Development, and Globalization
Study of cities and in cities; development and its practices and discourses; circulation of people, capital, information, and objects on various scales; local/supra-local and global relations; transnationalism and cosmopolitanism.
Popular Culture, Art, Religion, and Literature
Comparative studies in symbolic anthropology of popular traditions, art systems, religious traditions, and oral literature.
Indigenous Ethnology, Indigenism, and Interethnic Relations
Ethnographic studies of indigenous societies in Brazil and in South America. Regional systems of historical, political, and trade connections. The construction of indigenism in Brazil and Latin America.
Identities, Citizenship, and Gender
The construction of identity categories, political representations, struggle for recognition, and citizenship rights; class, gender, race, and ethnic positions and situations.
Integration and Conflict in African Societies and Southeast Asia
Integration and conflict as constitutive processes of societies in these parts of the world. Emphasis on the emergence of new societies (creolization) and idioms of conflict.
Anthropology’s Theory and History
Debates on breaches and continuities in the history of anthropological thought and on processes involving contention over concepts that are later established and actualized in ethnographic experience.