Cecília MacDowell Santos received her Ph.D. in Sociology from
the University of California, Berkeley, and a Master in Law from
the University of São Paulo. She joined the University of San
Francisco in 2001, and since 2006 she is also a research member of
the Center for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra in
Portugal. She teaches courses on gender and development,
globalization, sociology of law, and Brazilian culture and
society.
Her research focuses on legal mobilization within and across
national borders, violence, memory, and women's and human
rights. Her work builds on the traditions of critical social and
legal theory, qualitative sociology, and feminist transnational and
intersectional analyses of violence and struggles for rights. She
is interested in investigating how legal mobilization relates to
politics and shapes the recognition of violence and subjects of
rights on the basis of gender, race, class, and/or sexual
orientation. This was examined in her book, Women's Police Stations:
Gender, Violence, and Justice in São Paulo, Brazil (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2005), and guides her current projects on transnational
legal mobilization and human rights.
Her current research project, entitled "Transnational Legal
Activism: Brazilian NGOs and the Inter-American System of Human
Rights," examines selected cases of gender-based violence, racial
discrimination, violence against indigenous groups, and struggles
over political memory and justice. Building on research for this
project, she co-edited the books, Desarquivando a Ditadura: Memória e
Justiça no Brasil [Uncovering the Dictatorship: Memory and
Justice in Brazil] (Hucitec Press, 2009), and Repressão e Memória Política no
Contexto Ibero-Brasileiro: Estudos sobre Brasil, Guatemala,
Moçambique, Peru e Portugal [Repression and Political Memory
in the Ibero-Brazilian Context: Studies of Brazil, Guatemala,
Mozambique, Peru, and Portugal] (Brazilian Ministry of Justice,
2010). Drawing on research conducted for another project on
transnational legal mobilization and human rights in Portugal, she
is currently editing the book, A
Mobilização Transnacional do Direito: Portugal e o Tribunal Europeu
dos Direitos Humanos [Transnational Legal Mobilization:
Portugal and the European Court of Human Rights] (Almedina Press,
forthcoming).
