Caring or Punishment: disputes on truth building on drug user on judiciary elite and mental health professionals discourse.

• Grant number: 23/14410-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: June 01, 2024
• End date: February 28, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology - Other specific Sociologies
• Principal Investigator: Jacqueline Sinhoretto
• Grantee: Otávio Ravagnani Franco de Almeida
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 21/12714-4 - Legal professionals and democracy: local-global strugles to reshape professional forces in the judicial and public safety systems, AP.TEM

Abstract

The objective of this research is to understand the construction of truth about drug users through the discourses of elite judicial professionals. By understanding the agents and their discourses as engaged in a 'tug-of-war' between democratic and antidemocratic positions, the aim is to comprehend these positions, their blurrings, and ambiguities. At the same time, the research seeks to analyze how these discourses articulate with and reverberate in psychiatric power. It also maps the flow of ideas and the import-export of knowledge in the Brazil-USA axis regarding forms of drug user treatment. Fundamentally rooted in concepts developed by Foucault, the proposal is to compare different discourses produced in various instances, analyzing how the drug theme is elaborated and drug users are treated. To achieve this, discourse analysis will be conducted on the votes of ministers of the Supreme Federal Court in the voting of RE 635659, regarding the decriminalization of drug use; and judicial decisions of the São Paulo State Court on drug users. It will also include observational research and semi-structured interviews conducted on-site with professionals from three distinct mental health care institutions located in medium-sized cities in the interior of São Paulo. Interviews will also be conducted with agents structuring legal careers around the drug agenda