LAW, DEMOCRACY AND COMMUNITY-BASED POLICIES: a socio-legal study of the favela of Paraisópolis response to the covid-19 pandemic

• Grant number: 22/12842-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: January 01, 2023
• End date: December 31, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Law
• Principal Investigator: Raphael Cezar da Silva Neves
• Grantee: Fernanda Bezerra Ferreira
• Host Institution: Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Osasco. Osasco , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 19/22387-0 - Crises of democracy: critical theory and the diagnosis of present time, AP.TEM

Abstract

There is a field of scholarship that has been pointing out the importance of law - norms, institutions, and legal practices - to the concept and implementation of public policies. However, what are the law roles when policy initiatives are administered and implemented by communities not by the State? This is the question addressed by this project through a socio-legal study of the responses to the covid-19 pandemic devised by the favela of Paraisópolis, São Paulo.The project proposes an empirical research involving documental analysis and interviews, and seeks to contribute with an innovative perspective by intersecting the fields of law and policy and law and society. The hypothesis that the project investigates is that with the community-based policies and due to them a set of rules and norms emerge to make those policies feasible. This case may be understood as a face of legal community-based pluralism related to the creation of a democratic counterpublic.