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Infrastructure projects like roads and hydroelectric dams are meant to help achieve national economic development goals in Brazil and the Amazon. In the case of hydropower dams, they have a very specific goal: that of producing energy from water sources. Unfortunately, that objective is frequently associated with environmental and social damages that result from the construction of dams. In the Amazon these damages are more serious in terms of the impacts on biological and cultural diversity. The research for this paper is based on 5 years of study by an interdisciplinary team using survey and ethnographic methods, both qualitative and quantitative. This history is repeated frequently, and it becomes necessary to ask what types of changes would be necessary to hydropower projects to begin to have social and environmental positive results. This paper explores the causes of the problems posed by dams and suggests solutions in the process of approval, construction and operation of hydropower dams that could lead to better outcomes for the common good of society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global Covid-19 pandemic had seen inequalities much exacerbated and disparities between and within nations widened. The socio-economic crisis experienced in Brazil is no exception. The long-term impacts of the pandemic on our socio-economic and political lives and how they shape the production and reproduction of inequalities will continue to dominate contemporary sociological debates. We propose a set of original papers that focus not only on the measurement of social inequalities, but seek to articulate the complex social processes based on new empirical evidence on wealth distribution, well-being and life chances in the 21st century. Despite being a late-industrialized country, the general trends observed in Brazil in inequalities can shed light on similar developments in other societies, and this Special Issue aims to provide an in-depth analysis of the persistent and deepening inequalities worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an in-depth analysis of the changing structure and consequences of the links between the educational system and labor markets in Brazil in the past 30 years. Using the linkages methodology proposed by DiPrete et al. (2017) and Elbers (2021), we identify changes in education-occupation linkage that were offset by Brazil's rapid educational expansion, distinguishing between changes in rates and changes in the structure of school-to-work linkages. We find that the overall compositional shift towards higher educational levels did not have substantial effects on occupational allocation, yet the trends for younger and older workers, as well as for workers with different fields of study in the tertiary system, were fundamentally different. Our findings suggest that the features of educational expansion in Brazil - i.e., privatization, field of study concentration, and quality discrepancies - contributed to a weakening of the links between education and occupational systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates wage discrimination against workers with disabilities, as well as its interactions with other social markers of inequality, gender and race/color, using data from the 2010 Demographic Census (IBGE). Four types of disability are investigated: visual, hearing, motor, and mental. A multivariate regression model controlling for occupational fixed effects was used. The results indicate that there is wage discrimination for the four types of disability analyzed. It is observed that the greatest discrimination occurs for workers with severe visual impairment, followed by physical disabilities and, lastly, mental and hearing disabilities. However, such discrimination is of small magnitude when compared to other social markers of inequality, such as gender and race/color. The effect of gender, for example, is six times greater than that of visual impairment while non-white people suffer almost four times more discrimination. When considering the accumulation of the social markers of inequality, disability, gender, and race/color, it is confirmed that black women with and without disabilities are those who suffer the most from wage discrimination in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines, summarily, the sociological debate about concept of secularization and compares it to the concept of laicity. It analyses the limits of Brazilian laicity and focuses on the relationship between religion and politics in Brazil. It shows that the competition between Catholics and Pentecostals extrapolated the religious field and migrated to the spheres midiatic and politics. And highlights the occurrence of intenses clashes in Brazilian public sphere between Christian and laics groups about the place and role of religion, laicity of State, human rights, social, sexual and reproductive rights of minorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, grounded in the ethnographic study of a Women's Police Station in Porto Alegre (2004-2006), proposes to analyze the way police agents view their work. First, we consider the notions that underwrite the political project that gave rise to the women's police stations and the nuances involved when putting these notions into practice. Subsequently, we correlate the diverse elements that compose this universe - spatial organization, proximity with the clients and their demands, prestige of rank and function, and notions of law - developing the argument that there exists an internal hierarchy transposed onto the spatial organization as well as into the process of constructing juridical categories in the field of women's rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many cities around the world, administrations have built security mechanisms to reactivate public uses of urban space. In Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil, Mayor Roberto Cláudio's management (2017-2020) created the Municipal Urban Protection Program which instituted community protection cells (observation towers, drones, surveillance cameras and ostensible militia patrolling, with municipal guard). and military police riding bicycles and motorcycles) in places with high crime rates. This paper discusses the transformations caused by this "proximity protection" model in the Jangurussu neighborhood, a territory on the outskirts of the city that concentrates the highest number of adolescent deaths. The methodology is based on documentary research, direct observation of the daily life of the neighborhood and interviews with young people using the Urban Center for Culture, Art, Science and Sport (Cuca), located near the observation tower, for soiree, reggae parties. and rap performances. The results of this research suggest that the militarized territorialization of urban security policy, instead of favoring, contributes to weaken the intense uses of urban space by inhibiting and controlling the presence of young people in the observation tower's range. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the strategies and hypointerventions used by Fercal residents in the Federal District, Brazil, to deal with the ubiquitous, uneven and continuous presence of airborne particulate matter (PTS) air pollution, derived from the operation of two cement plants. Votorantim Cimento and Cimento Planalto (Ciplan). The research was operationalized through 30 semi-structured interviews between 2017 and 2018. Taking into account the slow and continuous character of this type of toxicity, we highlight the relations of asymmetry, feelings of distrust and frustration with insolubility. the air pollution between population, factories and the public authorities, indicating that cleaning practices, community care and negotiations made directly with the companies were ways found by the public to remain with some quality of life in an unhealthy place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the course of globalization, migration, and urbanization, the meaning of 'citizenship' undergoes a change, even though its normative core -- that is, the human rights and the related duties -- do not directly change. The present paper follows some possible transformations of citizenship which are directed to strengthening local ties. How and in which context does a local citizenship emerges? As is well known, Brazil is the only country, in which the right to the city is inscribed in the National Constitution. In light of the mentioned transformations, this article examines selected results of a research about citizens experiences in participatory procedures for urban planing proposals in Germany and Switzerland. Although such participatory forums are important for public opinion formation, it is clear that politics meaning decay in face of private interest, so that local citizenship might be questioned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the democratization of social policies through decentralization in Brazil. The authors make a theoretical analysis of the dynamics of decentralization of public policies in the Brazilian context and its repercussions on the democratization of social policies based on two phenomena that conform the attempts to modernize the state: the diffusion of municipal councils and the promotion of partnerships between civil society organizations and governments for the provision of social services. This is a theoretical paper that builds on different literature sources on popular participation, policy councils, relations between state and civil society and Brazilian political culture. The analysis points to the persistence of important challenges to the consolidation of political processes guided by the participatory democracy in Brazil, which eventually renew and bring new dimensions for traps and risks of centralization of power, technocratic power and expansion of the clientelism in contemporary Brazilian political reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first part of this paper presents the legal status of 27 European Economic Community and 20 Latin-American countries with respect to the relations established between the State and religions. There are three most salient models: countries with a regime of separation between State and church; countries adopting the separation between religion and State including particular provisions for certain religions or churches; and finally, countries adopting the State Church regime. Such a heterogeneity of approaches points to the existence of different forms of being secular, which are always shaped by the history and culture of each country. This is also the case of Brazil, which is the object of the second part of the analysis. The paper concludes with the perceptions held by individuals from the city of Porto Alegre (Brazil) with different religious belongings about one of the pillars of secularism, that is, religious freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central theme of this article is the growing investment in combating crime by the current democratic governments in Brazil, which contributes to consolidate also among us, the figure of "punitive state." The current capitalist arrangement generalizes almost instantaneously across the globe, tying the success of the new economic businesses considering criminal policy. Accordingly, the punitive state characterizes an ambiguity that is symbolically the portrait of the contemporary political moment. Put another way, around this control, thoroughly contradictory concepts are mixed as democracy and authoritarianism. Present in recent sociological reflections of Loïc Wacquant, David Garland, Nils Christie, Zygmunt Bauman and Giorgio Agamben, among others, this theme also begins to be discussed by the national academic community. The paper therefore aims to address what has been called "punitive state," political figure who portrays the economic, social and cultural changes already underway in the last thirty years and that rises in Brazil as an increasingly hegemonic control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the restorative justice system adopted by the Belgian law, and demonstrates the ways in which restorative mechanisms interact with the criminal justice system. Describes the initial difficulties faced in the early 1990s, during the first experiences with conflicts mediation in Belgium, as well as how they were overcome. At the end, from a critical perspective, designs possibilities for the adoption of restorative justice in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debate on crime and public security in Brazil is very wide and surrounded by controversies in public discussions. Regarding the penitentiary system, the studies highlight its fragility and selectivity. Therefore, this paper aims to draw a profile of the incarcerated in the Brazilian states during the period 2005 to 2010, taking into consideration several issues broadly discussed in the literature such as age, educational level of the prisoner, the color, the total fulfillment of the sentence, the level of recidivism, the age group and committed crime. Thereafter, we developed the analysis of correlation and regression between the rate of the prison population and the types of crimes to approach the relationship between the two factors. We conclude that what has occurred in Brazil is the privilege of a "repressive" action rather than a "preventive", which contributes to the increase in prison population without an impact on crime rates [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the experience of governance of the National Secretariat of Public Security (Senasp) to direct, coordinate and evaluate the actions and targets proposed by public policies in the area of security for the increment of a new paradigm - the public safety with citizenship - into the so-called "police education". To reach this, bibliographical research and field work were accomplished. The literature review included an examination of literature, nationally and internationally, on police professionalism, governance, public policy and democracy. The field work involved primarily an analysis of the official documentation of the National Secretariat of Public Security/Ministry of Justice (Senasp/MJ), especially addressed the area of "police education" produced in the period between 2003 and 2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elections for governor offer a privileged moment to observe not only party strategies in the face of the challenge of putting together electoral forces, but also to facilitate a description of electorate behavior and their options. The main objective of the present work is at first to outline a profile of the coalitionist strategies of the leftist parties: PT, PDT, PSB, PC do B, PCB, PPS, PS, PV, PSTU, PSOL, PCO, PMN, PHS, PH which participated in the elections for State governor (1986-2010). Secondly, this paper intends to evaluate the impact of the "ideological consistency" variable of the coalitions on electoral performance [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for an interdisciplinary interlocution between social theory and social philosophy in order to recast the problem of normativity in social practices, especially within Brazil's democratic ethos. By resorting to insights from critical theory and social epistemology, the essay proposes to reexamine Bourdieu's conception of habitus so as to contribute to a moderate social constructionism that cannot be reduced to a postmodernist discourse or to a variant of relativism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the as a sphere of dialogue between Police and community and, consequently, a new organization of traditionally hierarchical structures through the insertion of the citizen into the management of public policies. The matter of popular participation in public policies emerged as a focus of analysis in Brazilian social sciences, especially after the resignation of city councils, seeking to approximate public policy managers and citizens. In the specific case of public security, the motivation for the engagement of citizens in public policies acquires a more incisive connotation due to the growth of violent crime levels in the country. The present article offers a case study of the Council of Public Security in Brumadinho, a city in the Metropolitan Area of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. This case presents relevant elements for the understading of the complex interaction between social and public actors as well as their implications for the construction of public policies. In this way, it is possible to simultaneously discuss the challenges of popular participation and the new arrangement of the public structures, traditionally responsible for managing public security policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in cattle ranches of the Campanha gaúcha region, state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, this paper analyses the relationship between ranchers and the ranch hands working for them. Ranchers (in Portuguese patrões or estancieiros) and peões (the ranch hands) share certain characteristics regarding their economic choices and behaviour. Nevertheless, the cultural differences between them, as well as the distinct positions they occupy in the hierarchy of their relationship, imply irrevocably on strong differences. While the reproduction strategies of estancieiro families' social position are varied, peões face the unlikelihood of social ascension. These differences are more visible in certain elements of the peões' projects of resistance to the domination by their patrões. It is through these projects of resistance that this article will analyse the ambiguities and dynamics of this relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a comparative perspective, the present paper examines contemporary research on the determinants of the length of criminal justice in the United States of America and Brazil. In opposition of this field in United States of America, in Brazil research on the criminal justice system is not well performed. In this sense, comparing these two lines of research will allow to analyze the possibilities and limitations that have not yet been addressed by national analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to discuss the obstacles and problems which have been encountered during the implementation process of Law 11340/2006, the Maria da Penha Law. The reflections presented are based on empirical data obtained during the research on “Access to Justice for Women in Situations of Violence. Comparative Study on Women’s Police Stations in Latin America (Brazil, Ecuador, Peru and Nicaragua)”. The survey was conducted between 2007 and 2009 in Belo Horizonte, and had as its core research 15 in-depth interviews with women who experienced violence in marital relations and who sought the women police station to register the incident. From the set of results, we selected some data as well as some thoughts that help to illustrate the daily life of law enforcement in that municipality. This text has reviewed aspects concerning the role of the police, the judiciary and the network of specialist services in assisting women who are victims violence. The goal is to provide elements for the debate about the application of Maria da Penha Law and contribute to its full implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates, from an anthropological point of view, some aspects of the restorative justice's implementation in Brazil. Through the anthropological research, it is possible to say that restorative justice articulates an assembly of diverse actors and conjugates ideas of self-management and individual transformation with modernization of justice and promotion of the culture of peace. This paper aims to understand the emergency of this new technology of life management, as well as to discuss some tensions in its dissemination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]