Project acronym ALICE
Project Strange Mirrors, Unsuspected Lessons: Leading Europe to a new way of sharing the world experiences
Researcher (PI) Boaventura De Sousa Santos
Host Institution (HI) CENTRO DE ESTUDOS SOCIAIS
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH2, ERC-2010-AdG_20100407
Summary Europe sits uncomfortably on the idea that there are no political and cultural alternatives credible enough to respond to the current uneasiness or malaise caused by both a world that is more and more non-European and a Europe that increasingly questions what is European about itself. This project will develop a new grounded theoretical paradigm for contemporary Europe based on two key ideas: the understanding of the world by far exceeds the European understanding of the world; social, political and institutional transformation in Europe may benefit from innovations taking place in regions and countries with which Europe is increasingly interdependent. I will pursue this objective focusing on four main interconnected topics: democratizing democracy, intercultural constitutionalism, the other economy, human rights (right to health in particular).
In a sense that the European challenges are unique but, in one way or another, are being experienced in different corners of the world. The novelty resides in bringing new ideas and experiences into the European conversation, show their relevance to our current uncertainties and aspirations and thereby contribute to face them with new intellectual and political resources. The usefulness and relevance of non-European conceptions and experiences un-thinking the conventional knowledge through two epistemological devices I have developed: the ecology of knowledges and intercultural translation. By resorting to them I will show that there are alternatives but they cannot be made credible and powerful if we go on relying on the modes of theoretical and political thinking that have dominated so far. In other words, the claim put forward by and worked through this project is that in Europe we don’t need alternatives but rather an alternative thinking of alternatives.
Summary
Europe sits uncomfortably on the idea that there are no political and cultural alternatives credible enough to respond to the current uneasiness or malaise caused by both a world that is more and more non-European and a Europe that increasingly questions what is European about itself. This project will develop a new grounded theoretical paradigm for contemporary Europe based on two key ideas: the understanding of the world by far exceeds the European understanding of the world; social, political and institutional transformation in Europe may benefit from innovations taking place in regions and countries with which Europe is increasingly interdependent. I will pursue this objective focusing on four main interconnected topics: democratizing democracy, intercultural constitutionalism, the other economy, human rights (right to health in particular).
In a sense that the European challenges are unique but, in one way or another, are being experienced in different corners of the world. The novelty resides in bringing new ideas and experiences into the European conversation, show their relevance to our current uncertainties and aspirations and thereby contribute to face them with new intellectual and political resources. The usefulness and relevance of non-European conceptions and experiences un-thinking the conventional knowledge through two epistemological devices I have developed: the ecology of knowledges and intercultural translation. By resorting to them I will show that there are alternatives but they cannot be made credible and powerful if we go on relying on the modes of theoretical and political thinking that have dominated so far. In other words, the claim put forward by and worked through this project is that in Europe we don’t need alternatives but rather an alternative thinking of alternatives.
Max ERC Funding
2 423 140 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-07-01, End date: 2016-12-31
Project acronym BlackBox
Project A collaborative platform to document performance composition: from conceptual structures in the backstage to customizable visualizations in the front-end
Researcher (PI) Carla Maria De Jesus Fernandes
Host Institution (HI) FACULDADE DE CIENCIAS SOCIAIS E HUMANAS DA UNIVERSIDADE NOVA DE LISBOA
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2013-StG
Summary The global performing arts community is requiring innovative systems to: a) document, transmit and preserve the knowledge contained in choreographic-dramaturgic practices; b) assist artists with tools to facilitate their compositional processes, preferably on a collaborative basis. The existing digital archives of performing arts mostly function as conventional e-libraries, not allowing higher degrees of interactivity or active user intervention. They rarely contemplate accessible video annotation tools or provide relational querying functionalities based on artist-driven conceptual principles or idiosyncratic ontologies.
This proposal endeavours to fill that gap and create a new paradigm for the documentation of performance composition. It aims at the analysis of artists’ unique conceptual structures, by combining the empirical insights of contemporary creators with research theories from Multimodal Communication and Digital Media studies. The challenge is to design a model for a web-based collaborative platform enabling both a robust representation of performance composition methods and novel visualization technologies to support it. This can be done by analysing recurring body movement patterns and by fostering online contributions of users (a.o. performers and researchers) to the multimodal annotations stored in the platform. To accomplish this goal, two subjacent components must be developed: 1. the production of a video annotation-tool to allow artists in rehearsal periods to take notes over video in real-time and share them via the collaborative platform; 2. the linguistic analysis of a corpus of invited artists’ multimodal materials as source for the extraction of indicative conceptual structures, which will guide the architectural logics and interface design of the collaborative platform software.The outputs of these two components will generate critical case-studies to help understanding the human mind when engaged in cultural production processes.
Summary
The global performing arts community is requiring innovative systems to: a) document, transmit and preserve the knowledge contained in choreographic-dramaturgic practices; b) assist artists with tools to facilitate their compositional processes, preferably on a collaborative basis. The existing digital archives of performing arts mostly function as conventional e-libraries, not allowing higher degrees of interactivity or active user intervention. They rarely contemplate accessible video annotation tools or provide relational querying functionalities based on artist-driven conceptual principles or idiosyncratic ontologies.
This proposal endeavours to fill that gap and create a new paradigm for the documentation of performance composition. It aims at the analysis of artists’ unique conceptual structures, by combining the empirical insights of contemporary creators with research theories from Multimodal Communication and Digital Media studies. The challenge is to design a model for a web-based collaborative platform enabling both a robust representation of performance composition methods and novel visualization technologies to support it. This can be done by analysing recurring body movement patterns and by fostering online contributions of users (a.o. performers and researchers) to the multimodal annotations stored in the platform. To accomplish this goal, two subjacent components must be developed: 1. the production of a video annotation-tool to allow artists in rehearsal periods to take notes over video in real-time and share them via the collaborative platform; 2. the linguistic analysis of a corpus of invited artists’ multimodal materials as source for the extraction of indicative conceptual structures, which will guide the architectural logics and interface design of the collaborative platform software.The outputs of these two components will generate critical case-studies to help understanding the human mind when engaged in cultural production processes.
Max ERC Funding
1 378 200 €
Duration
Start date: 2014-05-01, End date: 2019-04-30
Project acronym CAPSAHARA
Project CRITICAL APPROACHES TO POLITICS, SOCIAL ACTIVISM, AND ISLAMIC MILITANCY IN THE WESTERN SAHARAN REGION
Researcher (PI) Francisco Manuel Machado da Rosa da Silva Freire
Host Institution (HI) CENTRO EM REDE DE INVESTIGACAO EM ANTROPOLOGIA
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2016-STG
Summary This project proposes an analysis of the reconfigurations established in the socio-political vocabulary of the western Saharan region – southern Morocco, Western Sahara and Mauritania – from the “post-empire” to the contemporary period. The project should produce an analysis of 1) the social and political structures shared in the region, 2) the local variations of those structures, based on case studies, 3) their specific configurations, based on social markers such as gender, age, and class, 4) the use of those structures in different historical periods. All these will be under theoretical and ethnographic scrutiny in order to achieve its main goal: 5) to understand the recent articulation of the social and political structures of the Western Saharan region, with broader and often exogenous political vocabularies.
The methodology used in this project is based on readings associated with different social sciences, with a particular focus on anthropology, history, and political science. The members of the research team, with experience and linguistic competence in the different geographies involved in this project, are expected to conduct original field enquiries, enabling a significant enhancement of the theoretical and ethnographic knowledge associated with this region.
The project’s main goal is to analyse the types of interplay established between pre-modern socio-political traditions and contemporary political expression and activism, in a particularly sensitive – and academically disregarded – region. Its effort to integrate a context that is usually compartmentalized, as well as to put together a group of researchers generally “isolated” in their particular areas of expertise, geographies, or nations, should also be valued. The project’s results should enable the different contexts under study to be integrated into the wider maps of current scientific research, providing, at the same time a dissemination of its outputs to an extended audience.
Summary
This project proposes an analysis of the reconfigurations established in the socio-political vocabulary of the western Saharan region – southern Morocco, Western Sahara and Mauritania – from the “post-empire” to the contemporary period. The project should produce an analysis of 1) the social and political structures shared in the region, 2) the local variations of those structures, based on case studies, 3) their specific configurations, based on social markers such as gender, age, and class, 4) the use of those structures in different historical periods. All these will be under theoretical and ethnographic scrutiny in order to achieve its main goal: 5) to understand the recent articulation of the social and political structures of the Western Saharan region, with broader and often exogenous political vocabularies.
The methodology used in this project is based on readings associated with different social sciences, with a particular focus on anthropology, history, and political science. The members of the research team, with experience and linguistic competence in the different geographies involved in this project, are expected to conduct original field enquiries, enabling a significant enhancement of the theoretical and ethnographic knowledge associated with this region.
The project’s main goal is to analyse the types of interplay established between pre-modern socio-political traditions and contemporary political expression and activism, in a particularly sensitive – and academically disregarded – region. Its effort to integrate a context that is usually compartmentalized, as well as to put together a group of researchers generally “isolated” in their particular areas of expertise, geographies, or nations, should also be valued. The project’s results should enable the different contexts under study to be integrated into the wider maps of current scientific research, providing, at the same time a dissemination of its outputs to an extended audience.
Max ERC Funding
1 192 144 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-04-01, End date: 2021-03-31
Project acronym COLOUR
Project THE COLOUR OF LABOUR: THE RACIALIZED LIVES OF MIGRANTS
Researcher (PI) Cristiana BASTOS
Host Institution (HI) INSTITUTO DE CIENCIAS SOCIAIS
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH6, ERC-2015-AdG
Summary This project is about the racialization of migrant labourers across political boundaries, with a main focus on impoverished Europeans who served in huge numbers as indentured labourers in nineteenth-century Guianese, Caribbean and Hawaiian sugar plantations and in the workforce of late nineteenth and early twentieth century New England cotton mills.
With this project I aim to provide major, innovative contributions on three fronts:
(i) theory-making, by working the concepts of race, racism, racialization, embodiment and memory in association with migrant work across political boundaries and imperial classifications;
(ii) social relevance of basic research, by linking an issue of pressing urgency in contemporary Europe to substantive, broad-scope, and multi-sited anthropological/historical research on the wider structures of domination, rather than to targeted problem-solving research of immediate applicability;
(iii) disciplinary scope, by proposing to unsettle historical anthropology and ethnographic history from within the boundaries of a single empire, and to overcome the limitations of existing comparative studies, by inquiring into the flows and interactions between competing empires.
I will also:
(iv) strengthen the methodology for multi-sited, multi-period research in anthropology;
(v) contribute to an anthropology of global connections and trans-local approaches;
(vi) promote the multidisciplinary and combined-methods approach to complex subjects;
(vii) narrate a poorly known set of historical situations of labour racializations involving Europeans and document the ways they reverberate through generations; and
(viii) make the analysis available to both academic audiences and the different communities involved in the research.
Summary
This project is about the racialization of migrant labourers across political boundaries, with a main focus on impoverished Europeans who served in huge numbers as indentured labourers in nineteenth-century Guianese, Caribbean and Hawaiian sugar plantations and in the workforce of late nineteenth and early twentieth century New England cotton mills.
With this project I aim to provide major, innovative contributions on three fronts:
(i) theory-making, by working the concepts of race, racism, racialization, embodiment and memory in association with migrant work across political boundaries and imperial classifications;
(ii) social relevance of basic research, by linking an issue of pressing urgency in contemporary Europe to substantive, broad-scope, and multi-sited anthropological/historical research on the wider structures of domination, rather than to targeted problem-solving research of immediate applicability;
(iii) disciplinary scope, by proposing to unsettle historical anthropology and ethnographic history from within the boundaries of a single empire, and to overcome the limitations of existing comparative studies, by inquiring into the flows and interactions between competing empires.
I will also:
(iv) strengthen the methodology for multi-sited, multi-period research in anthropology;
(v) contribute to an anthropology of global connections and trans-local approaches;
(vi) promote the multidisciplinary and combined-methods approach to complex subjects;
(vii) narrate a poorly known set of historical situations of labour racializations involving Europeans and document the ways they reverberate through generations; and
(viii) make the analysis available to both academic audiences and the different communities involved in the research.
Max ERC Funding
2 161 397 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-09-01, End date: 2021-08-31
Project acronym ContentMAP
Project Contentotopic mapping: the topographical organization of object knowledge in the brain
Researcher (PI) Jorge ALMEIDA
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSIDADE DE COIMBRA
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH4, ERC-2018-STG
Summary Our ability to recognize an object amongst many others is one of the most important features of the human mind. However, object recognition requires tremendous computational effort, as we need to solve a complex and recursive environment with ease and proficiency. This challenging feat is dependent on the implementation of an effective organization of knowledge in the brain. In ContentMAP I will put forth a novel understanding of how object knowledge is organized in the brain, by proposing that this knowledge is topographically laid out in the cortical surface according to object-related dimensions that code for different types of representational content – I will call this contentotopic mapping. To study this fine-grain topography, I will use a combination of fMRI, behavioral, and neuromodulation approaches. I will first obtain patterns of neural and cognitive similarity between objects, and from these extract object-related dimensions using a dimensionality reduction technique. I will then parametrically manipulate these dimensions with an innovative use of a visual field mapping technique, and test how functional selectivity changes across the cortical surface according to an object’s score on a target dimension. Moreover, I will test the tuning function of these contentotopic maps. Finally, to mirror the complexity of implementing a high-dimensional manifold onto a 2D cortical sheet, I will aggregate the topographies for the different dimensions into a composite map, and develop an encoding model to predict neural signatures for each object. To sum up, ContentMAP will have a dramatic impact in the cognitive sciences by describing how the stuff of concepts is represented in the brain, and providing a complete description of how fine-grain representations and functional selectivity within high-level complex processes are topographically implemented.
Summary
Our ability to recognize an object amongst many others is one of the most important features of the human mind. However, object recognition requires tremendous computational effort, as we need to solve a complex and recursive environment with ease and proficiency. This challenging feat is dependent on the implementation of an effective organization of knowledge in the brain. In ContentMAP I will put forth a novel understanding of how object knowledge is organized in the brain, by proposing that this knowledge is topographically laid out in the cortical surface according to object-related dimensions that code for different types of representational content – I will call this contentotopic mapping. To study this fine-grain topography, I will use a combination of fMRI, behavioral, and neuromodulation approaches. I will first obtain patterns of neural and cognitive similarity between objects, and from these extract object-related dimensions using a dimensionality reduction technique. I will then parametrically manipulate these dimensions with an innovative use of a visual field mapping technique, and test how functional selectivity changes across the cortical surface according to an object’s score on a target dimension. Moreover, I will test the tuning function of these contentotopic maps. Finally, to mirror the complexity of implementing a high-dimensional manifold onto a 2D cortical sheet, I will aggregate the topographies for the different dimensions into a composite map, and develop an encoding model to predict neural signatures for each object. To sum up, ContentMAP will have a dramatic impact in the cognitive sciences by describing how the stuff of concepts is represented in the brain, and providing a complete description of how fine-grain representations and functional selectivity within high-level complex processes are topographically implemented.
Max ERC Funding
1 816 004 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-02-01, End date: 2024-01-31
Project acronym CROME
Project Crossed Memories, Politics of Silence: The Colonial-Liberation Wars in Postcolonial Times
Researcher (PI) Miguel Gonçalo CARDINA
Host Institution (HI) CENTRO DE ESTUDOS SOCIAIS
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2016-STG
Summary Colonial-Liberation Wars generate plural memories, conflicting evocations and persisting amnesias. The project’s main challenge is to produce innovative knowledge about the memories of the wars fought by the Portuguese state and pro-independence African movements between 1961 and 1974/5. The approach chosen is simultaneously diachronic and comparative, inasmuch as it contrasts changes that took place between the end of the conflicts and nowadays, regarding how wars, colonial pasts and anticolonial legacies have been remembered and silenced in Portugal, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde and São Tomé and Principe. The key hypothesis is that wars - as pivotal moments that ended the cycle of Empire in Portugal and started the cycle of African independences in the former Portuguese colonies - triggered memorialisation and silencing processes which had their own historicity.
CROME is divided into two strands. The first one, named ‘Colonial Wars, Postcolonial States’, looks at the role played by the states under consideration in mobilising, articulating and recognising the past, but also in actively generating selective representations. ‘Memory as a battlefield’ is the second strand, which will highlight distinct uses of the past and dynamics between social memories and individual memories.
The project intends to demonstrate how wars gave rise to multiple memories and conflicting historical judgements, mostly in Portugal, but also to examine how the specific nature of the (post-)colonial histories of each African country has generated different ways to summon war memories and (anti-)colonial legacies. CROME will, thus, put forward a ground-breaking perspective in terms of colonial-liberation war studies, and will be instrumental in dealing with such traumatic experience, for its comparative approach might help overcoming everlasting constraints still at play today, caused by the historical burden European colonialism left behind.
Summary
Colonial-Liberation Wars generate plural memories, conflicting evocations and persisting amnesias. The project’s main challenge is to produce innovative knowledge about the memories of the wars fought by the Portuguese state and pro-independence African movements between 1961 and 1974/5. The approach chosen is simultaneously diachronic and comparative, inasmuch as it contrasts changes that took place between the end of the conflicts and nowadays, regarding how wars, colonial pasts and anticolonial legacies have been remembered and silenced in Portugal, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde and São Tomé and Principe. The key hypothesis is that wars - as pivotal moments that ended the cycle of Empire in Portugal and started the cycle of African independences in the former Portuguese colonies - triggered memorialisation and silencing processes which had their own historicity.
CROME is divided into two strands. The first one, named ‘Colonial Wars, Postcolonial States’, looks at the role played by the states under consideration in mobilising, articulating and recognising the past, but also in actively generating selective representations. ‘Memory as a battlefield’ is the second strand, which will highlight distinct uses of the past and dynamics between social memories and individual memories.
The project intends to demonstrate how wars gave rise to multiple memories and conflicting historical judgements, mostly in Portugal, but also to examine how the specific nature of the (post-)colonial histories of each African country has generated different ways to summon war memories and (anti-)colonial legacies. CROME will, thus, put forward a ground-breaking perspective in terms of colonial-liberation war studies, and will be instrumental in dealing with such traumatic experience, for its comparative approach might help overcoming everlasting constraints still at play today, caused by the historical burden European colonialism left behind.
Max ERC Funding
1 478 249 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-02-01, End date: 2022-01-31
Project acronym DUNES
Project Sea, Sand and People. An Environmental History of Coastal Dunes
Researcher (PI) Joana FREITAS
Host Institution (HI) Faculdade de letras da Universidade de Lisboa
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2018-STG
Summary Dunes are now protected environments, being top priority for coastal managers, because of their important role as coastal defences. But, it was not like that in the past.
For centuries dunes were considered unproductive and dangerous. The sand blown by the wind was taken inland, invading fields, silting rivers and destroying villages. In the eighteenth century, a strategy was developed to fight against the dunes: trapping them with trees, with the double purpose of preventing the destruction of arable land and increasing their economic value converting them into forest areas. Different governments, in different countries supported the immobilization of the shifting sands. The strategy, developed in Europe, was taken to other places in the world. These works caused profound changes in vast coastal areas transforming arid landscapes of sandy dunes into green tree forests.
This project aims to explore human-environment relations in coastal areas worldwide, since the eighteenth century until today, through the study of dunes as hybrid landscapes. Based on selected case-studies and comparative approaches, the project will focus on the origins, reasons and means of dunes afforestation; the impacts of the creation of new landscapes to local communities and ecosystems; and the present situation of dunes as coastal defences and rehabilitated environments. The final purpose is to produce an innovative global history of coastal dunes, combining knowledges from both Humanities and Social Sciences and Physical and Life Sciences, which has never been done.
Supported by an interdisciplinary team, this research will result in new developments in the field of the Environmental History studies; provide relevant knowledge considering the need of efficient management solutions to adapt to the expected mean sea level rise; and stimulate environmental citizenship by disseminating the idea that the future of the world coasts depends on today’s actions.
Summary
Dunes are now protected environments, being top priority for coastal managers, because of their important role as coastal defences. But, it was not like that in the past.
For centuries dunes were considered unproductive and dangerous. The sand blown by the wind was taken inland, invading fields, silting rivers and destroying villages. In the eighteenth century, a strategy was developed to fight against the dunes: trapping them with trees, with the double purpose of preventing the destruction of arable land and increasing their economic value converting them into forest areas. Different governments, in different countries supported the immobilization of the shifting sands. The strategy, developed in Europe, was taken to other places in the world. These works caused profound changes in vast coastal areas transforming arid landscapes of sandy dunes into green tree forests.
This project aims to explore human-environment relations in coastal areas worldwide, since the eighteenth century until today, through the study of dunes as hybrid landscapes. Based on selected case-studies and comparative approaches, the project will focus on the origins, reasons and means of dunes afforestation; the impacts of the creation of new landscapes to local communities and ecosystems; and the present situation of dunes as coastal defences and rehabilitated environments. The final purpose is to produce an innovative global history of coastal dunes, combining knowledges from both Humanities and Social Sciences and Physical and Life Sciences, which has never been done.
Supported by an interdisciplinary team, this research will result in new developments in the field of the Environmental History studies; provide relevant knowledge considering the need of efficient management solutions to adapt to the expected mean sea level rise; and stimulate environmental citizenship by disseminating the idea that the future of the world coasts depends on today’s actions.
Max ERC Funding
1 062 330 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-11-01, End date: 2023-10-31
Project acronym EXCHANGE
Project Forensic Geneticists and the Transnational Exchange of DNA data in the EU: Engaging Science with Social Control, Citizenship and Democracy
Researcher (PI) Helena Cristina Ferreira Machado
Host Institution (HI) CENTRO DE ESTUDOS SOCIAIS
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH2, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary Today we are living in the “genetic age” of criminal investigation. There is a widespread cultural belief that DNA technology has the unrivalled capacity to identify authors of crimes. In light of this ideology, EU Law (Prüm Decision, 2008) obliges all Member States to create the conditions for the reciprocal automated searching and comparison of information on DNA data for the purpose of combating cross-border crime, terrorism and illegal immigration. Forensic geneticists play a crucial role in this scenario: they develop the techno-scientific procedures that enable DNA data to be shared across national boundaries. EXCHANGE aims to understand the close links between a highly specialised field of expert knowledge – forensic genetics – and surveillance in the EU.
If the EU succeeds in this political project, about 10 million genetic profiles of identified individuals will be exchanged between agencies in all EU countries. This raises acute cultural, political and societal challenges. EXCHANGE aims to address these challenges by scrutinizing how forensic geneticists, within the context of the transnational exchange of DNA data in the EU, engage with the social values attributed to science – i.e. objectivity, truth – and the values of social control, citizenship and democracy.
The expected outputs are: 1. To provide a general picture of the Prüm framework by conducting interviews with forensic geneticists in all EU countries; 2. To develop in-depth knowledge of forensic geneticists’ activities relating to Prüm using ethnographic observation and qualitative analysis of criminal cases; 3. To study countries with different local positionings in relation to Prüm by means of a comparative study involving Portugal, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. EXCHANGE stimulates interdisciplinary dialogue between the social sciences and the forensic genetics. This research also tackles questions that are relevant to all the actors involved in criminal justice cooperation in the EU.
Summary
Today we are living in the “genetic age” of criminal investigation. There is a widespread cultural belief that DNA technology has the unrivalled capacity to identify authors of crimes. In light of this ideology, EU Law (Prüm Decision, 2008) obliges all Member States to create the conditions for the reciprocal automated searching and comparison of information on DNA data for the purpose of combating cross-border crime, terrorism and illegal immigration. Forensic geneticists play a crucial role in this scenario: they develop the techno-scientific procedures that enable DNA data to be shared across national boundaries. EXCHANGE aims to understand the close links between a highly specialised field of expert knowledge – forensic genetics – and surveillance in the EU.
If the EU succeeds in this political project, about 10 million genetic profiles of identified individuals will be exchanged between agencies in all EU countries. This raises acute cultural, political and societal challenges. EXCHANGE aims to address these challenges by scrutinizing how forensic geneticists, within the context of the transnational exchange of DNA data in the EU, engage with the social values attributed to science – i.e. objectivity, truth – and the values of social control, citizenship and democracy.
The expected outputs are: 1. To provide a general picture of the Prüm framework by conducting interviews with forensic geneticists in all EU countries; 2. To develop in-depth knowledge of forensic geneticists’ activities relating to Prüm using ethnographic observation and qualitative analysis of criminal cases; 3. To study countries with different local positionings in relation to Prüm by means of a comparative study involving Portugal, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. EXCHANGE stimulates interdisciplinary dialogue between the social sciences and the forensic genetics. This research also tackles questions that are relevant to all the actors involved in criminal justice cooperation in the EU.
Max ERC Funding
1 838 150 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-10-01, End date: 2020-09-30
Project acronym INTIMATE
Project "Citizenship, Care and Choice: The Micropolitics of Intimacy in Southern Europe"
Researcher (PI) Ana Cristina Alvarez Caiano Da Silva Santos
Host Institution (HI) CENTRO DE ESTUDOS SOCIAIS
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2013-StG
Summary "Changes in personal life in recent decades illustrate significant socio-cultural transformations. However, the focus of mainstream sociological literature has been the heterosexual, monogamic and reproductive couple, with little research exploring non-conventional intimacy in Southern Europe. INTIMATE’s main aim is to contribute to legal, policy and cultural innovation through the findings of a comparative, empirically-grounded, research project designed to rethink citizenship, care and choice from the point of view of 'non-standard intimacies' (Berlant and Warner, 2000) in 3 contrasting Southern European countries: Italy, Portugal and Spain.
Guided by the fundamental sociological question of how change takes place and, concomitantly, how law and social policy adjust to and/or shape the practices and expectations of individuals concerning personal life, this research will address intimacy from the perspective of those on the margins of social, legal and policy concerns in Southern Europe – lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgendered people.
INTIMATE is based on 3 strands – Strand 1: the micropolitics of partnering; Strand 2: the micropolitics of parenting; and Strand 3: the micropolitics of friendship. The notion of micropolitics enables a double focus on everyday practices and expectations (biographic dimension) within the wider contextual framework of law and social policy (socio-legal dimension).
This qualitative research involves conducting 6 cross-national qualitative studies across the strands of partnering, parenting and friendship in each of the chosen countries. Topics covered are lesbian coupledom, polyamorous relationships, assisted conception and surrogacy, naming a child, transgender and care, and living with friends in adult life.
Expected results include a range of both international and national publications targeting academia and beyond, thematic conferences and participatory workshops, policy briefs, media briefs and an interactive website."
Summary
"Changes in personal life in recent decades illustrate significant socio-cultural transformations. However, the focus of mainstream sociological literature has been the heterosexual, monogamic and reproductive couple, with little research exploring non-conventional intimacy in Southern Europe. INTIMATE’s main aim is to contribute to legal, policy and cultural innovation through the findings of a comparative, empirically-grounded, research project designed to rethink citizenship, care and choice from the point of view of 'non-standard intimacies' (Berlant and Warner, 2000) in 3 contrasting Southern European countries: Italy, Portugal and Spain.
Guided by the fundamental sociological question of how change takes place and, concomitantly, how law and social policy adjust to and/or shape the practices and expectations of individuals concerning personal life, this research will address intimacy from the perspective of those on the margins of social, legal and policy concerns in Southern Europe – lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgendered people.
INTIMATE is based on 3 strands – Strand 1: the micropolitics of partnering; Strand 2: the micropolitics of parenting; and Strand 3: the micropolitics of friendship. The notion of micropolitics enables a double focus on everyday practices and expectations (biographic dimension) within the wider contextual framework of law and social policy (socio-legal dimension).
This qualitative research involves conducting 6 cross-national qualitative studies across the strands of partnering, parenting and friendship in each of the chosen countries. Topics covered are lesbian coupledom, polyamorous relationships, assisted conception and surrogacy, naming a child, transgender and care, and living with friends in adult life.
Expected results include a range of both international and national publications targeting academia and beyond, thematic conferences and participatory workshops, policy briefs, media briefs and an interactive website."
Max ERC Funding
1 462 537 €
Duration
Start date: 2014-03-01, End date: 2019-02-28
Project acronym MAPLE
Project Measuring and Analysing the Politicisation of Europe before and after the Eurozone Crisis
Researcher (PI) Marina Castelo Branco da Costa Lobo
Host Institution (HI) INSTITUTO DE CIENCIAS SOCIAIS
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH2, ERC-2015-CoG
Summary The Eurozone crisis forces us to reconsider the conventional wisdom that “Europe” has little effect on national electoral politics. MAPLE’s central goal is to analyse the degree of politicisation the European issue has acquired following the Eurozone crisis, in Belgium, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain in 2000-2016, and to focus on its consequences for voting behaviour. Our main thesis is that a fundamental shift has occurred in the vote function as a result of this politicisation: short-term factors of voting behaviour, such as economic perceptions as well as leader effects may have been structurally diminished in the countries which have seen bailouts and where citizens increasingly perceive the main policy decisions being directed from Brussels. To measure politicisation of the EU we will analyse both parliamentary debates and media outlets coding for salience and polarisation of the European issue. These measurements will contribute to understand how politicisation of the EU has underpinned political changes between 2000 and 2016 in the countries concerned. The analysis of voting behaviour will employ a social-psychological methodology in order to test the relationship between increased politicisation of the EU and short-term effects. MAPLE will create datasets for 12 newspapers, more than 60 political parties, 26 elections as well as conduct 12 web panel surveys of a representative sample of voters in the countries concerned. MAPLE is interdisciplinary: it combines approaches from social psychology and political science. It includes qualitative data collection (coding of newspapers and parliamentary debates) followed by qualitative and quantitative data analysis. MAPLE will ultimately illuminate the way in which Europe has decisively entered national electoral politics and with what consequences for the vote calculus.
Summary
The Eurozone crisis forces us to reconsider the conventional wisdom that “Europe” has little effect on national electoral politics. MAPLE’s central goal is to analyse the degree of politicisation the European issue has acquired following the Eurozone crisis, in Belgium, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain in 2000-2016, and to focus on its consequences for voting behaviour. Our main thesis is that a fundamental shift has occurred in the vote function as a result of this politicisation: short-term factors of voting behaviour, such as economic perceptions as well as leader effects may have been structurally diminished in the countries which have seen bailouts and where citizens increasingly perceive the main policy decisions being directed from Brussels. To measure politicisation of the EU we will analyse both parliamentary debates and media outlets coding for salience and polarisation of the European issue. These measurements will contribute to understand how politicisation of the EU has underpinned political changes between 2000 and 2016 in the countries concerned. The analysis of voting behaviour will employ a social-psychological methodology in order to test the relationship between increased politicisation of the EU and short-term effects. MAPLE will create datasets for 12 newspapers, more than 60 political parties, 26 elections as well as conduct 12 web panel surveys of a representative sample of voters in the countries concerned. MAPLE is interdisciplinary: it combines approaches from social psychology and political science. It includes qualitative data collection (coding of newspapers and parliamentary debates) followed by qualitative and quantitative data analysis. MAPLE will ultimately illuminate the way in which Europe has decisively entered national electoral politics and with what consequences for the vote calculus.
Max ERC Funding
1 592 859 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-08-01, End date: 2021-07-31
