The empirical research and the Law. An inquire on the status and role of the empirical research about the legal world.

• Grant number: 12/11590-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: November 01, 2012
• End date: August 13, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Law - Theory of Law
• Principal Investigator: Maira Rocha Machado
• Grantee: José Roberto Franco Xavier
• Host Institution: Escola de Direito de São Paulo. Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project aims to look into the empirical research which deals with legal categories. It is structured on two different and complementary axes: an empirical and a theoretical one. On the one hand, we intend to do an assessment of the empirical research done in Brazil since the 1990s that identifies itself as "legal" or works with legal categories. To be more precise, it is a methodological assessment: we are interested in research questions, data collection and analysis techniques, methodological approaches (quantitative, qualitative or both) and the discussions on epistemological and methodological difficulties in doing empirical research with Law. On the other hand, we intend to theoretically discuss the possibility of building an empirical research in Law or on Law. In this theoretical axis of the project, we intend to address, on the level of legal epistemology, the obstacles for and the possibilities of conceiving a scientific empirical research in the field of Law. The objective here is to work on the issue of how could it be possible to produce scientific knowledge from the point of view of a field which has in its core the legal doctrine and in which the outcome of scientific truths based on falsifiable hypothesis are not of great concern.