Beyond crime: the process of representing hate crimes in contexts of political effervescence (2016-2018)

• Grant number: 21/06778-0
• Support type: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Effective date (Start): August 01, 2021
• Effective date (End): July 31, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology - Other specific Sociologies
• Principal researcher: Sergio França Adorno de Abreu
• Grantee: Pedro Callari Trivino Moisés
• Home Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 13/07923-7 - Center of the Study of Violence - NEV/USP, AP.CEPID

Abstract

The present project intends to address hate crimes based on the empirical study of three crimes that occurred in different countries (Brazil, United States of America and United Kingdom), notwithstanding in similar social and political context. Using the cultural sociology developed by Jeffrey C. Alexander, the research aims to analyze not hate crimes per se, but the social representation produced by different social groups, as well as the conflict between the narratives of these representations, triggered from the same crime. At the same time, we proposed an investigation, based on hate crimes, of the period in which these crimes happened (2016-2018), when far-right leaders, supporters of antidemocratic ideals and defenders of violence as a discursive tool, rose in the political arena. The ideologies of these leaders also circulate in civil society, interfering both in the action of those who share this way of thinking and in their representation of events in social life. Based on the case study of these three hate crimes, the project intends to analyze the scope and meaning of this political moment and the processes of social change triggered from it.