Agents of history, persons of rights: legal personality in Brazilian slavery (1860-1888)

• Grant number: 13/00525-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Master's degree
• Effective date (Start): June 01, 2013
• Effective date (End): November 30, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Law - Theory of Law
• Principal Investigator: Juliano Souza Albuquerque Maranhão
• Grantee: Mariana Armond Dias Paes
• Supervisor: Rebecca J. Scott
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Direito (FD). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Research place: University of Michigan, United States
• Associated to the scholarship: 12/06201-5 - The social construction of legal categories: study of the slaves legal personhood in freedom suits (1860-1888, BP.MS

Abstract

The Master research "The social construction of legal categories: study of the juridical personality of the slave in freedom suits (1860-1888)", funded by FAPESP and developed within the Graduate Program in Law, at University of São Paulo, aims to analyze what were the contours given to juridical personality of slaves in Brazil in the last decades of the nineteenth century. The theoretical approaches that guide the research are the critical legal studies, critical race theory and the social history of law. Such perspectives were decisive in the choice of research sources, which are: legislation; books and legal journals, that circulated among Brazilian jurists in the second half of the nineteenth century; and 126 freedom suits that were processed before the Court of Appeals of Rio de Janeiro, between 1860 and 1888. By analyzing these sources, we intend to identify as a specific legal category (juridical personality), which has centrality in the legal doctrine of modernity, has been socially constructed in a borderline case: slavery. Throughout this research, we found the need to consult other books of eighteenth and nineteenth-century legal dogmatics, beyond those set out in the masters project. These editions are not available in Brazil, but the libraries of the University of Michigan have a collection of these sources, in addition to having unlimited access to online platforms on which such documents are available. The University of Michigan Law School is an institution of academic excellence, which focuses on interdisciplinary studies in the field of law, having in its faculty teachers in the areas of law and history. So, do the research stage at this institution favors the dissertation, in empirical research and in the deepening of theoretical and methodological reflections on the theme. (AU)