Maria-Fátima Santos

Research Interest Statement:

Broadly, I am interested in different dimensions of legal and penal state power–their relationship to how societies are organized, the forms of social exclusion that compose them, and the people and mechanisms that influence their transformations. My current research examines public defenders who counsel poor people in Brazil’s penal courts to clarify key dynamics that shape legal aid professions in different contexts, including their relationship to inequality, racialized violence and state transformation. In other work, I examine how carceral administration connects to dynamics of social conflict and political legitimacy.

Education:

Ph.D., University of California-Berkeley 2024

Departmental Areas of Interest:

General Social Theory; Political Sociology; Law and Society; Deviance, Law and Social Control; Organizational and Occupational Analysis; Race and Ethnic Studies; Culture

Other Campus Affiliations

Center for Law, Society & Justice

Selected Publications

Santos, Maria-Fátima. 2022.  “Modernizing Leviathan: Carceral Reform and the Struggle for Legitimacy in Brazil’s Espírito Santo State.” American Sociological Review 87(5): 889 – 918.

Santos, Maria-Fátima. 2024. “Penal State Power in Latin America: Cases, Concepts and Questions for the Political Sociology of Penality.” Sociology Compass 18(5).