Dissertation Research: Legal Rights and Ethnic/Racial Identity in Northeastern Brazil

这个项目调查了国家制定了法律类别来指定种族和民族的土地斗争对身份的影响。研究人员假设，法律作为一种强大的社会力量发挥作用，强加类别和秩序社会关系，并为自我认同和动员提供结构。这项研究将集中在一个印第安人后裔社区和一个邻近的塞尔吉比（Sergipe）偏远地区的逃亡奴隶后裔社区为合法保障的土地权利而进行的斗争。方法将包括民族志实地研究，如入户调查、参与观察、访谈和收集生活故事，并辅以文献研究。这项研究对学术界和政策制定者具有重要意义，并将对社会法律研究、历史、人类学和法律领域做出贡献。它将促进关于拉丁美洲各地混合种族农村社区法律待遇的辩论。

This project investigates the impact on identity of a struggle for land where the state has devised legal categories to specify race and ethnicity. Law, the investigators hypothesize, operates as a powerful social force, imposing categories and ordering social relations, and providing structures for self--identification and mobilization. The research will focus on the struggle for legally-guaranteed land rights by a community of descendants of Indians and a neighboring community of descendants of fugitive slaves in the backlands of Sergipe. Methods will include ethnographic field research, such as household surveys, participant observation, interviews, and collecting life stories, supplemented by documentary research. This research has significance for academics and policy-makers and will contribute to the fields of socio-legal studies, history, anthropology, and law. It will contribute to debates about legal treatment of mixed-race rural communities throughout Latin America.