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My short story and my main scholar interest

I am an abolitionist sociologist: I believe in science (not in social sciences) and I try not to look aside from very nasty social conditions of life.

I am against all kinds of crimes. That is why I am against the penitentiary system and penitentiary industrial system; because of they legitimate crime as a privilege of politically important people and present as innate criminals socially isolated people, both inside and outside walls.

The main problem of the penitentiary system is not torture, be it occasional or systemic. The main problem of the modern penal system is the way it legitimate institutional lies about what happens inside prison and outside as well, as a way of reinforcing by judicial means social, economic and political privileges and depress further isolated people isolation.

I come to the conclusion of social sciences collusion with state crimes, in the prison system and elsewhere. Social sciences focus on power analysis and forget about all caring work people do to produce other people and societies. They also forget to point out how the states incorporate stigma in people, dividing them. Social sciences hide from the public and from the social workers the ugly part of modern society. This invisible part of us causes much avoidable harm and unhappiness. Mostly because one does not see it coming.

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.