Through this postdoctoral fellowship at CRIA, I seek to address how the phenomenon known as global health could be conceived of as an additional domain for the private accumulation of capital through speculation. By addressing global health as a site for speculation, I look to argue that what appear as colonial ideological remnants in contemporary local public health practice are in effect necessary tools for the re-inscription of categories of social difference. These tools, in turn, facilitate processes of exploitation and alienation that allow for the extraction of value. It is my contention that these regimes of speculation in global health serve as the foundation for the coloniality of local public health practices. Throughout my fellowship, I will compare ethnographic data collected over the course of 28 months between 2017 and 2020 in Honduras with new data collected in the same research locales over the course of 6 non-consecutive months of research during 2023 and 2025. 

According to the last WESO report, there are over 1.4bn workers in vulnerable jobs worldwide, with numbers expected to rise in 2020 due to COVID-19. Several attempts have been made at both domestic and international levels to address these concerns. This includes efforts through the Sustainable Development Goals process, which includes a specific statistical indicator to measure informal  employment (8.3.1), the formulation of SDG8 (decent work) and SDG9 (sustainable industrialization). Across countries and world regions, the degree to which SDGs have been used to address youth issues and inform national policies varies significantly. Indeed, in spite of the fact that the great majority of states have formally committed to addressing the SDGs, including those related to insecure employment, there is little evidence to indicate that developing regions currently have the capacity to systematically study the problems if informal employment and vulnerability in ways that facilitate the development and implementation of concrete viable solutions. This is due, in our view, to two major challenges. First, although a number of approaches that have been used inside the EU, there has been little, if any, attempt to adapt the existing framework elsewhere. Second, no systematic review of anti-precariousness policy has been attempted beyond the EU region. LABOUR is a research and training programme designed to address the above-mentioned shortfalls of research and development approaches with particular attention to a region where this is particularly worrying concern. Informal employment in Asia is estimated to account for 68.2% of the active population. By gathering a team of 14 participants that includes academic and non-academic partners working on labour insecurity, we aim not only at producing specialists on the topic and on the region but also at proposing concrete mitigation measures that can be taken into account by decision-makers and development organisations.

In the last decade Portugal had three governments with very different political orientations and proposals for the legislative organization of society, each one claiming to initiate a process of transformative politics that would have a positive impact upon Portuguese society. Social policies, legislation on labor, health, education, housing and security have been profoundly altered with each legislative change, impacting in different ways upon the institutions concerned and upon people’s lives. Furthermore, the economic crisis has engendered a crisis in the European model, which are inter-related and reveal a breakdown of social reproduction which puts into question redistribution models both at the macro (market, State), meso (mediating institutions and actors) and micro-scales of social interaction (families, social networks). LIVEPOLITICS focus on the different ways citizens experience the policies which govern their lives in a daily basis, how they implement them and what kind of negotiations can take place in the framework of moral economies. Through a detailed examination of the ways by which specific actors in diverse sectors of society experience legislation and policy orientations through a range of institutions, this project focuses on how perceptions of the legitimacy of policies emerge through policy implementation and negotiation within a wider analytical context of the workings moral economies. The project will focus on: 1) Livelihoods, policies, everyday life strategies; 2) Grassroots economics – definition, value and care regimes, interpretation and ways out of crisis; 3) Public policies, from conception, implementation and impact upon institutions and citizens. The project aims at reflecting on how different sectors of the Portuguese society experience their livelihoods through a permanent relation with state institutions throughout a decade of profound sociopolitical transformations. The strategies to overcome difficulties of provision under an au...

Prison, by its nature and function, is a place where security-related issues assume a central role. This pervasiveness, however, does not dispel the ambiguity that characterizes the very concept of security. Incuded in the Human Security and Public Administration challenge, throughout 12 months of fieldwork in 11 Portuguese prisons (of a total of 49), this project aims to set side by side different perspectives, subjective perceptions and experiences revolving around the wider sphere of human security which can be found within a prison environment, namely those concerning: 1) differences in perceptions of security in confined and open spaces; 2) strategies of security and protection within walls and beyond them; 3) notions of civil rights, justice and citizenship; 4) perceptions of security in everyday personal and family relationships; ontological security in terms of well-being, care, and access to occupational activities; the impact of outside general conditions on everyday life within walls. This project will consider different stakeholders involved - inmates, guards, technicians, directors - equating the multiplicity of issues raised by this emerging area of anthropology, the anthropology of security. Its contribution therefore is to address the concept of security per se, in its meanings, in how it is understood and interpreted by very specific actors: those who are directly involved and subject to security policies and practices.

Security is a major global concern and is at the forefront of current debate, crossing political, social, economic, and cultural spheres, specifically within the European Union, marking both the 8FP as the Horizon 2020 agenda. Following previous works and networking activities on surveillance and security, this project reflects upon the notion of human security in Portugal within the context of the EU. It is groundbreaking in its in-depth ethnographic approach considering that security cannot be restricted to crime and terrorism related problems but a broader perspective is needed: security policies adopted by states and shared by the result from the interaction between public and private spheres; several actors contribute in the production of policies and are mutually influenced; and the production of security policies within the EU combines internal and external factors and their significance varies according to each country's economic, social and political history. The Portuguese case, in terms of its specific features, recent past and current developments, is the starting point towards better understanding of EU policies. To emphasize interdependence both at the national and international levels (as reflected in the Europe 2020 priorities) is a main goal, questioning common understandings of security, different conceptions of state, and its role as a social agent with responsibilities over the protection of its citizens. Understanding how the equilibrium between economic power, cultural and political idiosyncrasies, and the regulation of fundamental rights is maintained is paramount. I seek to expand the notion of interdisciplinarity by adopting a holistic perspective of what is implied by security according to all interlocutors and perspectives at play.

Offender supervision in Europe has developed rapidly in scale, distribution and intensity in recent years. However, the emergence of "mass supervision" (i.e. in the community) has largely escaped the attention of legal scholars and social scientists more concerned with the "mass incarceration" reflected in prison growth.  As well as representing an important analytical lacuna for penology in general and comparative criminal justice in particular, the neglect of supervision means that research has not delivered the knowledge that is urgently required to engage with political, policy and practice communities grappling with delivering justice efficiently and effectively in fiscally straitened times, and with the challenges of communicating the meaning, legitimacy and utility of supervision to an insecure public. This Action aims to remedy these problems by facilitating cooperation between institutions and individuals in different European states (and with different disciplinary perspectives) who are already carrying out research on offender supervision or, in the case of early stage researchers, are attracted to that field. It will review and synthesise existing knowledge and then enrich it through interdisciplinary and comparative work and capacity building. The Action will thus provide a European forum on offender supervision for academics, policy makers, practitioners and interested citizens.

The concept of Care is being used in Anthropology to address situations where deprivation and health problems are dealt with in ways that include, but are not limited to, state provision to citizens (Benda-Beckmann 1988). In the relational existence of daily life, people use care in a broad sense to describe the processes and the sentiments between people who take care of each other in various dimensions of social life and who are not necessarily in need. For the human being as a person, to be, means being with others; taking care and being taken care of, thus implying both a practical and emotional involvement. Care is a motivational disposition to enact moral ideologies of good and right. Thus, it is frequently through the metaphor of 'care' that people express their moral concerns and practices of an ideal existence in a world with deep inequalities and deprived people. Care also has a moral significance: based on concern and dedication it implies the acknowledgment of the other in relation to one's existence thus becoming a constitutive element of social bonding. Bearing this framework in mind, and focusing on the Portuguese example, the project offers an innovative approach which combines the significance of economic factors with an emphasis on phenomenology. How do people respond to crisis situations in order to create sustainable existence for themselves, their significant ones and the world they live in? How do caring practices express or create sentiments of shame, care, dependence, compassion, solidarity, morality, dignity and self-esteem? What are the criteria for choosing to reach out to others: nationality, peer group, kinship, or ideology? How do 'market' or 'material' economic interests intersect with other interests such as creating a sense of belonging, fulfilling a moral duty, taking a political stance, responding to a religious calling, making one's life more meaningful? Portugal is currently undergoing a major social and economic situation of 'cr...

The primary objective of the Action is to increase and deepen knowledge about living and working in the surveillance age, in order to better understand the consequences and impacts of enhanced surveillance, and subsequently to make recommendations about its future governance and practice.