Urban anthropology, work and family

• Grant number: 13/13224-4
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Visiting Researcher Grant - International
• Duration: September 21, 2013 - October 20, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Urban Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: Susana Soares Branco Durão
• Grantee: Susana Soares Branco Durão
• Visiting researcher: Maria Antonia Pereira de Resende Pedroso de Lima
• Visiting researcher institution: Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Portugal
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The aim of the three projects is to continue on working in an area of urban anthropology study and security - as can be seen in the curricular sumula -- combining them now to themes of family and personhood studies. Three issues arise at the Centre of these projects, each with different amplitude degrees: a) How are designed the police forces and contemporary policing in societies which operated, in recent years, transitions from authoritarian to democratic regimes, having been marked by a history of colonization (Africa, Brazil, Portugal). The traditional discussion of security models, vis a vis the rising crime and urban violence in focus, must engage with current debates in the Brazilian and African anthropological literature. We will need to understand the whole plurality of meanings around at we call "safety sociality", understood as ways of being, self production and imagination of being safety. It will be important to combine the study of ways of life with violent and criminal death, involving all sorts of rumors in such cities. That is, it is necessary to interpret discourses around death, as well as the networks and circuits of the dead in the so-called target cities, where people and collectives are afflicted by forms of violent crime. b) Modes of definition and redefinition of cultural conceptions and their States in different countries cannot be alienated from local sociology. We have to keep in mind the various intersections between forms of power, traditional and modern-bureaucratic authorities, between conceptions of the use of force and the human rights' political demands. c) Central to the first project is the study of translocal networks and ways of life of persons living and training in high policing professionalizing periods away from their countries in order to return to their places with some professional training. What kind of solidarity creates this experience over the years? What is the role of these networks in their own cities? What continuities and changes in power and local authority are this people operating? And, finally, what happens to their families and their personal ties? Studying cases of security professionals and the police forces, both private and public, we propose a reflection around the establishment of networks of people, relatives, colleagues and friends in translocal and transnational circuits. Exploring cases of cadets from African countries (Cape Verde, São Tomé, Mozambique and Angola) and of Brazilian Brazil, sought to understand its passage by Portuguese-speaking worlds and the meanings associated with such experiences. Starting from the concept of "circular mobility" of Marshal Sahlins (1997) - of comings and goings between various places, symbolic and materially differentiated, here involving police institutions - it is believed that through police and policing such networks lead to the ressignification of ethnic, gender, tradition and modernity. Based on a qualitative methodology, we will explore various types of textual, ethnographic and historical materials related to related themes. In the first project, we will develop a transatlantic network analysis of police officers and their families, following a methodology multi-situated between Portugal, Africa and Brazil. In the second and third project case studies will be developed in cities of São Paulo state, privileging field research in several neighborhoods and places of Campinas. Expected results: through these projects we seek to enlarge the area of urban studies in contemporary anthropology in order to contemplate the more effective interconnection between city studies, migration (movement of expatriation and repatriation), police professionalization, work, family, and security. (AU)