As a political ethnographer my research advances scholarship at the intersection of anthropology, sociology and public administration. Through my research, I aim to push for a critical theorising of the state-citizen relations in the field of politics and policy implementation through ethnographic fieldwork. I aim to move beyond normative conceptualisations of the state and citizenship by understanding how politics shape citizens and frontline workers’ representations, expectations and the daily constructions of the state.
My work on state-citizens relations began in my PhD in Sociology at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (France), for which I won a scholarship from Brazil’s Ministry of Education to fully fund PhDs in international institutions. I was the first ethnographer to investigate the Brazilian welfare program Bolsa Família from the perspective of frontline workers, identifying how their efforts to implement the programme in a way they deemed fairer were embedded in their representations of ‘deservingness’, which generated insecurity among the programme’s recipients and claimants. This research has been published in journals articles, as well as an Open Access book (in Portuguese and French) by Etnográfica Press: A política da pobreza / La politique de la pauvreté.
Another of my research streams is on how different groups engage with politics and the state. I analyse how welfare recipients entered clientelist relationships, and how intermediaries operate in those contexts. In my current book project, I focus on politicians' viewpoints: based on ethnographic research among Brazilian political candidates and election campaign workers, I analyze how they make sense of the changing political landscape during the Bolsonaro administration, their own role in it, and the strategies they use to claim legitimacy for the political use of their own identities.
I also have an exciting project I will announce soon on state-building in (post-)conflict contexts..!
