Social Movements and the Law in Brazil, the case of the 2013 Protests in Porto Alegre

Former IISL Master's student Fiammetta Bonfigli addressed topic of Social Movements and the law in Brazil. The case of the 2013 protests in Porto Alegre. In 2013 several cities in Brazil were the theatre of mass protests against the increasing bus fares. The protests became known as the June days and were questioning various aspects of Brazilian social and political life: inequality, race, right to the city inside the context of the World Cup and the Rio de Janeiro Olympic games. Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul state, is at the core of this field study on social movements and the law. With 30 semi-structured interviews to the participants of the Bloco de Luta political organization and the legal team that was supporting and helping the protesters, the aim is to understand the reasons and motivations of the participants and the peculiarities that differ the protests in Porto Alegre from the ones in other cities like San Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. How the law has been used as a tool by the protesters? Which are the possible connections with other movements around the world like the 15M in Spain and Occupy Wall Street in the United States?

Fiammetta Bonfigli is a post-doc scholarship recipient at the Universidade La Salle in Canoas, Brazil. She received a doctoral degree in Sociology of Law at the Università degli Studi di Milano (Italy) and a Master degree in Sociology of Law at the International Institute for the Sociology of Law in Oñati. Her works deal with Social Movements and the Law, Penal Abolitionism, Surveillance Studies and Post-dictatorship societies.