We welcome Postdoctoral Fellow Henrique Almeida de Castro to the Zukunftskolleg
Henrique Almeida de Castro is one of our new Postdoctoral Fellows from the 18th call for applications for 2-year Fellowships. He has started his fellowship in May and is affiliated with the Department of History and Sociology as well as the Cluster of Excellence "The Politics of Inequality".
Henrique Almeida de Castro completed his bachelor’s degree in Law (2016) and doctorate in Law and Political Economy (2022) at the University of São Paulo. During his doctoral studies, he was a visiting fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. He subsequently worked as a postdoctoral at FGV São Paulo Law School’s Center for Law and Political Economy. His main research interests revolve around State-society relations, including participatory democracy, corporatism, and the co-production of enforcement. He is also interested in conceptual issues surrounding institutional theory. His research has been featured in journals such as Political Studies and Law & Social Inquiry.
His research project at the Zukunftskolleg is entitled “Curbing Labor Violations in Hard-to-Reach Places: Brazilian Rural Unions’ Strategic Repertoires within Global Value Chains”. Brazil’s secluded rural workplaces present an extreme case of enforcement difficulty due to limited access and information for authorities, and it is known their successes have depended on the cooperation of local rural unions. Yet, we understand little about these unions, including the conditions they face, the strategies available to them, and why they may behave in specific ways and not others. The research will draw on fieldwork and interviews to conceptualize and explain unions’ repertoires of organizational tactics in such hard-to-reach places.
We wish him all the best for his project and for his time at the Zukunftskolleg!