Curriculum Vitea
I have some English WebPages to introduce myself and some of my
scientific and scholar
proposals:
What to do?
Violence at the symbolic interactionist world (book presentation)
Sciences of Emergence
Second degree universitary multidisciplinary course on
Sciences of
Emergence
Social Natures social survey
A social survey research (you can find an English version of the
questionnaire)
To know more and to participate on the survey read
THIS
English language articles:
The Empire is like Dracula
Alternatives to retaliation
Finding a way out of prison: Portugal,
a collaborative model
Discrimination imbedded on Social
Theory
Cognitive limits of the
social sciences and common sense
Who are the prisoners?
European Prison
Observatory reports
The face and Consciousness of
Discrimination
Trust and the face
The face and the time
Practical and Epistemological
Struggles for Abolitionism
Violence in society
The brain, the face and emotion
The Spirit of Crimmigration
Modes of tought and
collective behavior in the sciences
Penitentiary risk and prohibitionist
spirit
Human Rights and cultural
interpretations of Human Rights
Do Social
Movement exist?
Human Rights across National Borders
Outcast spirit
Rationalization essays to understand urban violence
Rehabilitation actor´s perception of costs and benefits of Portuguese
Penitentiary system
Damasios´s errors - homage to a source of inspiration
Two Cultures and the real thing
Two Cultures and the real thing
second version
English language sites:
Social Natures
Sciences of
Emergency
English language slides:
Theory of
instability
Social Theory
and Prison
Submission Spirit
Criminalization
Waves
Discussion on Sociology of Emotions
Short CV
I am teaching sociology at university since
1984. In Lisbon only by 1974 teaching sociology become legal. The former
dictatorship did not allow it. I did work on Information Society (computers
and knowledge, information and social control) till 1996 (when I finish
my PhD - in Portugal we have to built all academic structures from near
zero, after the 1974 revolution).
By 1996 I join prison inmates in order to
produce SOS-Prisões, a denunciation newspaper on what happens in
Portuguese prison system. By the year 2000 I began working on sociology
of prison. Soon I realized that the Portuguese state do not allow easily
to leave alone who wants to describe what kind of life lives the
prisoners by the human rights standards. Even my sociologist colleagues
at university felt the need to avoid any kind of proximity with my work
or my concerns.
At that point I understood better what is
Goffman social stigma.
I began to work on understanding why
social theory (emancipator, critical, neo-marxist, neo-liberal kinds of
sociology) are not available to work on "painful" or "dangerous"
subjects - such as violence organized by people in charge.
I come to a conclusion. I wrote it in 3
books. My thesis takes into account the fact that social theory
developed since the 30´s in USA and after 1945 in Europe supported by
Welfare State. It used classical determinism used by 19th century
sociologists to conceive a future without violence, even if state
violence never stopped to develop. Anyway, sociologists worked as social
workers: it means apart of repressive workers (in police force and at
the army). The social theory teaching and learning become biased by the
professionalization opportunities and by the ideological framework of
Western Social State, that segregates social solidarity and warfare (and
economic worlds).
Sociologist still are and feel themselves
attached to that comfortable framework. They resist to be free, as any
person resists to free her/himself from former stabilized social
situations.
Even critic sociology feel the same. It
uses political science and economics as an escape from academic social
theory - that is why it miss to face the moral issues involved, being
that the critic of legal processing by the state institutions - courts
and executive powers - or being that the need for new concepts to face
life (in the new ecological conjuncture and in the new sexual activity
control framework).
My alternative theorization concept is
called state-of-spirit.
The three books are written in Portuguese
and they are called "Prohibitionist spirit" (an essay on war making and
social human nature) "Submission spirit" (a monograph on Lisbon
immigrant perceptions and reactions confronted with the idea and
practices of Justice) and "Sociology of instability" (a guide for
scholar diffusion of this alternative theoretical proposal, in order to
face new uses and new strategies of sociology as a scientific movement).
Social secrecy is one of the central
concepts that rise. It is conceived as part of human social nature that
are used to conform to powers in charge, and as one of the main goals of
scientific discovery: to uncover social secrets, as a human rights task
to a better and more human global society.
I want to contribute to
sociology. I propose, as a sociologist, to recall the discussion of
positivism and take from the classic positivism what it has to inspire
us now a day. I propose to believe again on the idea of changing the
world with knowledge, instead of using knowledge to serve hypocritical
powers in charge. I propose sociology to open to psychology and
neuro-biology, law and doutrinary philosophical knowledge and health
care sciences and practices (western and eastern).
I feel good about my
work because when I work with students they feel like being told about
how to deal with real things, instead of dealing with abstract concepts.
That a big achievement for me. Science should turn complex problems
simpler: that is its main positive goal. Meanwhile, since I become more
confident about the value of my work, I need to improve my writing in
order to communicate with sociology students, the educated public and
popular audiences.