1 - Centre for Global South Epistemologies (NESG)
Leaders: Paulo Henrique Novaes Martins de Albuquerque and Josimar Jorge Ventura de Morais
The Centre's academic proposal is focused on valuing, reorganizing and deepening studies that take local, social and cultural diversities into account as resources to reflect on globalization at its epistemic complexity. The Centre seeks to link teaching, research, extension and advisory activities in fields concerning new theories on the Global South, social and cultural studies and their diversities, and new methodologies that value LOCAL and CONTINENTAL.
2 - Study Group on Social Theory and Subjectivities
Leader: Cynthia de Carvalho Lins Hamlin
The Study Group on Social Theory and Subjectivities intends to reflect on the different concepts of subject developed within contemporary social theory through its interface with sociology, philosophy, anthropology, psychology, etc. Focusing on action theories and arising from a plurality of interests related to the substantive research of its members, the Group discusses meanings and forms of subjectivation primarily related to the following themes: gender, labour, consumption, aesthetics.
3 – Research Centre on Networks, Sociabilities and Local Governance
Leader: Breno Augusto Souto Maior Fontes
The Research Centre on Networks, Sociabilities and Local Governance gathers researchers with diverse disciplinary backgrounds in the construction of a research agenda, the development of academic activities and social intervention. Members undertake activities on themes oriented towards three research topics: Networks, practices of sociability and local governance; Management, Urban Governance, Discussions on authorities in Cities; health.
4 - Citizenship, Exclusion and Processes of Change Research Centre (NUCEM)
Leaders: Breno Augusto Souto Maior Fontes, Paulo Henrique Novaes Martins de Albuquerque, Artur Fragoso de Albuquerque Perrusi and Eliane Maria Monteiro da Fonte
NUCEM has two thematic axes: academic research, focusing on theoretical work on Citizenship, Identity and Exclusions, and intervention methodologies. The academic research axis includes members’ research projects and student supervised work, at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The intervention practices axis is structured around several activities, such as training for civil society activists, socio-organizational intervention, advisory activities to civic and governmental bodies.
5 - Centre for the Study of Crime, Violence and Public Safety Policies (NEPS)
Leader: José Luiz de Amorim Ratton Júnior
Created in 2007, NEPS has been conducting research on violence and social inequalities, violence and gender, violence and ethnic-racial inequalities, the functioning of the police, justice and prison systems, public security policies, criminal organizations, the dynamics of drug markets and other illegal markets, drug policies.
6 - Education and Society/ Identity Research Group
Leader: Silke Weber
The Education and Society Research Group, active since 1994, is linked to the Research area on Education, Labour, Science and Technology. Four thematic axes guide its studies: social, cultural and institutional characteristics in contexts of formal and informal education; recent educational policies; links between the process of professionalizing teachers and social demands for education at different levels of schooling; and university-society relationships from a macro analytical perspective, pointing out recent changes in higher education policies in effect in Brazil.
7 - Contemporary Brazilian Society: Culture, Democracy and Social Reflection
Leader: Eliane Veras Soares and Remo Mutzenberg
The group emerged in 2006 from a convergence of interests around contemporary Brazilian society, focusing on three aspects: social thinking, the question of culture and political identification processes. Its common axis is the issue of democracy in the context of interpretations, cultural production and social practices. Starting in 2008, the group has incorporated dialogue with Latin American and African intellectual production, seeking an interchange with critical thinking and discussions over postcolonialism and cultural studies.
8 - Permanent Observation Laboratory on Rural Transformations in the Northeast (LAE-RURAL)
Leaders: Maria de Nazareth Baudel Wanderley and Josefa Salete Barbosa Cavalcanti
Created in 1999, the Permanent Observation Laboratory on the Transformations of the Rural World in the Brazilian Northeast - LAE-RURAL - was created as a space for the convergence of researchers and for bolstering in-depth reflections on the issues facing the rural world in the region. In this context, its activities center around the following themes: Globalization and Agriculture; Rurality in contemporary society; State and public policies; Social movements and Associations; Labor and Gender; Peasantry and Family Agriculture; Rural youth; The Environment and Agroecology.
9 – Diversiones – Human Rights, Power and Culture in Gender and Sexuality
Leader: Gustavo Gomes da Costa Santos
This research group seeks to produce research and extension activities about contemporary cognitive, psychosocial, political and cultural processes surrounding the themes of gender and sexuality. Researchers connected to the group work on a theoretical approach inspired by post-structuralist, feminist and postcolonial contributions. The group is characterized by its interdisciplinary approach, confirmed by the presence of researchers from different fields of the human and social sciences. They boast extensive research experience.