Social Transformation, Economic Citizenship and Democratization of Democracy
Our goal is to develop a comparative analysis on different territorial scales of: institutional and social interactions by constructing participatory approaches and high-intensity democratic cultures; challenges around economic citizenship through a multidisciplinary analysis (legal, economic, and psychosocial) of consumption processes and household debt; processes of social innovation and common property defense articulated with a critical and reflective use of information and communication technologies.

State, Justice Administration and Access to Law
Our goal is to promote and strengthen theoretical and methodological tools that provide an understanding on how law, justice and democracy interact together, and to assess the political implications of State and societies’ reforms and legal and structural transformation. Acknowledging the social and legal diversity of contemporary societies, our research focuses on the ongoing reforms in the judicial systems, the judicial innovation and the formulation of policies, engaging law, sociology, psychology, economics, and political science, among other areas of knowledge, in a dialogue.

(Anti-)racism, Colonialism and Postcolonialism
Research and debate on the historical embeddedness of the dominant approaches to racism and anti-racism. Considering the legacies of colonialism, concepts like ‘integration’, ‘interculturality’ and ‘social cohesion’ are questioned by academia and public policies. This line of research and the continuous dialogue with anti-racist movements provides a deeper understanding of the post-colonial logics of the institutionalized racism and helps map alternatives to fight it. The production of contextualized knowledge facilitates the development of training and dissemination activities of social and political relevance.

Epistemologies, Memories and Recognition
The three oppression and discrimination threads that mark modern world in different time and space frames – capitalism, colonialism and patriarchy – draw abyssal lines that prevent the acknowledgement of the “other side” realities. This Eurocentric and hegemonic knowledge generates abyssal differences, invisibilizing the memories of colonial violence. This line of research focuses on the Epistemologies of the South, aiming at furthering knowledge, welcoming diversity, reclaiming cognitive justice, promoting the awareness and memories of the “underprivileged by Eurocentric history”.

Gender, Sexuality and Disability
Research on gender, sexuality and disability is today a significant arena within the academic work, both nationally and internationally. This research area considers the various axes of oppression and resistance from which bodies and non-normative identities claim recognition. Assuming that the personal is political, topics such as relational and intimate citizenship, multi-parenting, gender fluidity and disability, among others, are particularly important within the various developed projects.