Between the State, the institutions and the subjects

Considerations about subjectification, the resistance and the moralities

Abstract

The purpose of this texte is to present a set of theoretical, political, and ethical concerns that have recurrently emerged from the ethnographic research conducted since 1996 through the the Violence Research Laboratory (LEVIS) of the Federal University of Santa Catarina. After introducing the basic elements of our research trajectory in the field of violence, without any pretension to exemplarity, I will critically reflect on some specific theoretical and methodological issues, with particular reference to the importance of the notion of “moral economy” for our current research. This will be a preliminary exercise of systematization focusing on the role that anthropology can play in the social agenda concerning the production of justice in Brazil. My anthropological reflections will question the notion of moral economy and its relevance in analyzing social movements and public policies in the field of violence, justice, and human rights. Specifically, I will highlight how theory, politics, and ethics intersect in our work, in order to discuss the fundamentals that have guided our research throughout three interrelated and complementary analytical areas: 1) the production and moral character of violence; 2) law and the judicialization of social relations; and 3) the judicial construction of the subject-victim.