It is with great pleasure that we publish our first interview, an effort that takes multiple people from multiple backgrounds to be finished. I am not going to give away our process, but let’s say it included a list of researchers and relevant people in the field and we eagerly look for someone in that same area of interest to […]
2021 started with a shock for the Brazilian industry. After more than 100 years of operation in Brazil, Ford Company Brazil decided to close its operations. With more than 5,000 direct employees, the closure of factories in the country tends to worsen a scenario that is already dramatic for the country due to the Coronavirus pandemic and the slow process of economic recovery.
BRaS Blog opens its doors to scholars and students. We want to listen to different voices, viewpoints. Also, diverse research methodologies and theoretical frameworks. From an excerpt of an ongoing project to comments on relevant current issues, we want to gather different ideas on the table and talk about them. And that was how BRaS Blog Interviews was born, and I am delighted to be the Editor. Our purpose is to develop our network by better understanding researches and researchers dedicated to shedding light on Brazil as a case study or from a comparative perspective.
The ones who are alive witnessed history being made on 6th January 2021. On this day, one of the eldest and stable democracies in the world was shaken up to the core. The U.S. Capitol was viciously overrun by pro-Trump rioters who stopped the joint session of Congress that had taken place to count the votes of the 2020 election and officially declare who is going to be the next president of the United States of America. Chaos and a tragedy unfolded due to a violent mob’s invasion of the U.S. Congress, a symbol of the American democracy.
Democracy requires that citizens are not treated in the same way that experts treat them in their respective technical deliberations, requiring real social inclusion. Therefore, the need for greater investment specifically focused on science education is highlighted, to provide an academic basis for all knowledge professionals to understand and develop, in the best possible way, their scientific practices.
To be or not to be? This dubiousness, uncertainty, and even alienation is an aspect of the social life of Mankind: is it fascism or not? Is it a dictatorship or not? Does it relate to a serious or severe violation of fundamental rights, the denial of social life and dignity - or does it not? Under Politics, in the sense of Polis, however, the law must be incisive to minimize such an outlook. For instance, the Brazilian Constitution of 1988, hereafter referred to as CF88, as a teleological map, must function as a guide, a moral compass, so that public policies are not strangulated.
The AK Gender's purpose is to promote research, reflection, and debate about persisting gender-related inequalities, encompassing role stereotypes, and their social impact. The AK Gender aims to favor an interdisciplinary approach; thus, the guest lecturer was Prof. Thiessen, whose research focus is gender-sensitive social work. She is currently the Vice Dean at the Faculty of Social Work from the Hochschule Landshut in Germany.
On October 28, 2020, decree 10,534 that institutes the Brazilian National Policy for Innovation and provides for its management and governance was published in the official gazette, the official press agency for publicizing the acts of the Brazilian Federal government. This policy intends to promote and foster innovative initiatives in the federal public sector, as well as to ensure cooperation at the state and municipal government levels; and to improve innovation in the private sector through sectoral coordination promoted by specific ministries, related to the government.
Probably no experience, not even human construction/fabrication demands so many results compared to democracy. Not even intensive care medicine. In intensive care units, 10% chances of survival mean that out of every hundred people, ten will survive. In a political democracy, the reduction of political goals to 10% of success or implementation implies the loss of a democratic regime 100% of the time. No democracy in the world, in the past or present survives or has survived without clear, satisfactory, and evident results.
As I grew up in a city with a few thousand inhabitants, in the most populous state of Brazil, I saw the municipal elections as a major event. Perhaps one of the biggest events, in my trifling perception about that small town. My recollection of the local elections is that they mobilized the residents in a similar way to the football championships in the 90s. These were times of “santinhos”, “jingles”, electoral propaganda on the façades of houses, waving flags on street corners in central regions of the city. Also, they were times of re-democratization.