Roberta S Pamplona, a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology with a collaborative degree in Women and Gender Studies, has published “Reframing Feminist Ideas, Challenging State Incorporation: Activism Against Violence and the Feminicídio Law in Brazil” examining how feminist activists in Brazil continue to mobilize the concept of feminicídio beyond its state-defined parameters.
Drawing on feminist documents produced between 2016-2023, following the criminalization of feminicídio in Brazil, Pamplona’s research challenges conventional theories that suggest institutionalization leads to depoliticization. Her analysis reveals how feminist groups have strategically reframed the legal framework of feminicídio to confront state initiatives, including firearm ownership projects, by employing an individual criminal category against the state itself. The significance of Pamplona’s research has been recognized with two prestigious awards: the 2024 Best Graduate Student Paper Award from the Criminology and Law Research cluster of the Canadian Sociology Association and the 2024 Graduate Award.
Pamplona’s work, which focuses on the intersection of feminist theory, gendered violence, law, and social movements, demonstrates the conditions under which feminists can repurpose institutionalized ideas about violence for new political objectives. Her research on feminicídio has also been published in Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society.
You can read the full paper here.