Financialization of poverty and reconfigurations of the metropolitan periphery in ...
| Grant number: | 08/57843-1 |
| Support type: | Research Projects - Thematic Grants |
| Duration: | March 01, 2009 - December 31, 2014 |
| Field of knowledge: | Humanities - Sociology |
| Cooperation agreement: | CNPq - INCTs |
| Principal Investigator: | Eduardo Cesar Leão Marques |
| Grantee: | Eduardo Cesar Leão Marques |
| Home Institution: | Centro Brasileiro de Análise e Planejamento (CEBRAP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil |
| Associated scholarship(s): | 13/03531-7 - Promoting institutional change through State-society interactions: reflections on the impacts of feminist movement and government relations in Paraguay, BP.PD |
Abstract
The Center for Metropolitan Studies (CEM) (www.centrodametropole.org.br) is an inter-institutional research program established in 2000, and selected (in 2009) to be part of CNPq-Fapesp National Institutes for Science and Technology Program. The Center is committed to:1. Produce fundamental research on the mechanisms explaining social conditions in cities and metropolises.2. Provide educational and technical training to students (undergraduate, graduate), to post-doctorate and to researchers and public officials in general3. Transfer knowledge to public officials and agencies by means of public policy studies development and socio-economic and geographical data production4. Diffuse knowledge by means of innovative mediaAs a National Institute for Science and Technology its analytical focus has been oriented toward understanding the most important factors behind social inequality. Although economic processes are assumed to be underpinnings of peoples well-being and poverty alleviation, the labor market, public policies as well as social ties are investigated as independent and crucial mechanisms through which people can either get in or out of poverty traps. Independent societal and political processes, besides economic dynamics, shape social conditions in general and poverty in particular. Hence, the Centers research agenda is organized along three lines: (i) access to labor market, (ii) access to the State and public policies, and (iii) sociability. Jobs, social services, and sociability revealed to be critical devices people could mobilize to overcome or alleviate poverty situations. Therefore, the Centers research commitment is to study separately the independent development of these three dimensions, analyzing both (i) the determinants of peoples access to jobs, social services and different modes of sociability as well as (ii) the effect of jobs, social services and modes of sociability on the reproduction or alleviation of poverty.There are also two mid-scale structures deserving particular attention: social networks and space. Centrality or isolation within these structures may significantly change the effects of processes broadly organized around these three axes outlined above. Integrating both the spatial and the relational dimension into the analysis requires new methodological tools adequate to scrutinize the complex relationship between space, social relations and the different dimensions of poverty. As for methodology and data collection techniques, the Center adopts a multi-method approach, combining quantitative and qualitative research designs as well as GIS techniques. (AU)