Boaventura de Sousa SantosGOSE (born November 15, 1940, in
Coimbra, Portugal) is a sociologist,
Professor emeritus at the Department of Sociology of the School of Economics of the
University of Coimbra (FEUC), Distinguished Legal Scholar at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School,[1] and Director Emeritus of the Centre for Social Studies (CES) at the University of Coimbra. A
Marxist,[2][3][4] outspoken sympathizer and avowed supporter of the
Bloco de Esquerda party,[5] he is regarded as one of the most prominent Portuguese living
left-wing intellectuals.[6][7] In 2023, after a
sexual harassment scandal, the University of Coimbra suspended his academic positions.[8] The final report of the independent commission set up to assess the accusations of harassment against Boaventura Sousa Santos and other members of the institution confirmed the
unethical and
unlawful situations described by
victims.[9]
Early life
Boaventura de Sousa Santos was born on November 15, 1940, in
Coimbra, Portugal.[10] His paternal grandparents lived in a small village of
São Pedro de Alva, in the municipality of
Penacova, 30 km away from Coimbra, where they had a house and farmland employed on the cultivation of corn and potatoes as well as
oliveorchards and
livestock.
His own father was born in that house. Boaventura de Sousa Santos used to spend his school holidays in his grandparents estate helping them on several agricultural tasks and playing with neighbours. An only child, he lived in the city of Coimbra with his parents. His father worked as a
chef in the prestigious restaurant Nicola in the downtown of Coimbra, which was frequented by members of the city's academia.[11]
Career
He earned his undergraduate degree in law from the
University of Coimbra in 1963 and in 1965 a post-graduate diploma in
jurisprudence in
West Berlin at the
Free University of Berlin. He went on to pursue a doctorate on the
sociology of law at
Yale University[1] from 1969 to 1973.[12]
In 1973, he became one of the co-founders of the School of Economics of the University of Coimbra (FEUC), where he opened a sociology course. Since 1978, he was also founder and director of the Centre for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra (CES, Centro de Estudos Sociais).[13][14] In the mid-1980s, he began to structurally adopt the role of a researcher whose understanding of the world extended beyond a
Western perspective. He was a Global Legal Scholar at the
University of Warwick and visiting professor at
Birkbeck College, University of London[15] and has been involved in research in Brazil, Cabo Verde, Macau, Mozambique, South Africa, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador and India.
He has travelled widely, giving classes and lectures while also extending his range of experiences of learning in the process. He was one of the driving forces behind the
World Social Forum, the spirit of which he considers essential to his studies of counter-hegemonic globalization and to promoting the struggle for global cognitive justice, an underlying concept of “
Epistemologies of the South.”[16] According to senior researchers of the CES, the research unit increasingly avoided the classical themes of the field of sociology to focus almost entirely on the Epistemologies of the South, which define the work of its director emeritus Boaventura de Sousa Santos. According to them, this line became "hegemonic" and came to resemble a "cult".[17]
He has written and published widely on the issues of globalization, sociology of law and the state, epistemology, social movements and the World Social Forum in 10 languages. He has been awarded several prizes, most recently Frantz Fanon Lifetime Achievement 2022, by the Caribbean Philosophical Association; Science and Technology Prize of Mexico, 2010; the Kalven Jr. Prize of the Law and Society Association, 2011.
His most recent project - ALICE: Leading Europe to a New Way of Sharing the World Experiences - is funded by an Advanced Grant of the
European Research Council (ERC), one of the most prestigious and highly competitive international financial institutes for scientific excellence in Europe.[citation needed] The project was initiated in July 2011 and enabled him to gather a team of young researchers from various different countries and academic backgrounds who are committed to collectively develop the lines of research that have emerged from the epistemological, theoretical-analytical and methodological premises of the work he has consolidated over many years.[citation needed] The main idea underlying ALICE is to create a decentered conception of the anti-imperial South, in which Africa and Asia also find their place in a broader and more liberating conversation of humankind.[18] A
premise of ALICE is to bring to light the notion that the “Eurocentric world has not much to teach the wider world anymore and is almost incapable of learning from the experience of such a wider world, given the colonialist arrogance that still survives.”[19]
Ideology
We have the right to be equal whenever difference diminishes us; we have the right to be different whenever equality decharacterizes us.
Boaventura de Sousa Santos has been engaged in a process of re-discovering
Marxism. While acknowledging the limits of Marxism, Santos has more recently described Marxism as an “ongoing discovery.”[21] During his studies in West Berlin, he was immersed in a university community that aspired to democratic values, while living in the context of the
Cold War. This also allowed him to experience the stark contrast between the communist influence in
East Germany and the liberal democratic ideology in
West Germany.[18]
In 1970 Sousa Santos traveled to Brazil in order to do
field research for his doctoral dissertation. His work was focused on the social organization of the construction of parallel legality in illegal communities, the
favelas or squatter settlements.[18]
In the mid-1980s, he began to structurally adopt the role of a researcher whose understanding of the world extended beyond a Western perspective. His fieldwork was based on
participant observation, lasting several months, in a
Rio de Janeiro slum where he experienced the struggle of the excluded populations against oppression first hand. There, he learned from the wisdom of men and women struggling for subsistence and for recognition of their dignity. Sousa Santos believes in the importance of the social scientist striving for objectivity, not neutrality.[22]
The
sociology of absences is a
sociological theory developed by Boaventura De Sousa Santos which, he says, "aims to show that what does not exist is in fact actively produced as non-existent, that is to say as an unbelievable alternative to what is supposed to exist”.[23][24]
Southern epistemologies. Citizen movements and controversy over science is the title of the work in which Boaventura proposes this notion, which is articulated around the following thesis: “
global justice is not possible without global
cognitive justice".[25]
Sexual and moral harassment allegations
Initial allegations
In April 2023, he was accused of a series of cases of
sexual and moral harassment, including cases of
sexual assault,
misogyny and
exploitation of labour.[26][27][28][29] These events allegedly happened in the Centro de Estudos Sociais (CES), a juridically autonomous[30] research unit in sociology belonging[31][32] to the
University of Coimbra, where Sousa Santos is
emeritus director. The alleged cases were reported in a publication by three former researchers from CES. Researchers Lieselotte Viaene, Catarina Laranjeiro and Miye Nadya Tom – a Belgian, a Portuguese and a North American – are the authors of the article where, despite not revealing names, the case which had “the Star Professor” as its central figure, began to be associated with Boaventura de Sousa Santos, founder and former longstanding director of the Centre for Social Studies[33] of the University of Coimbra, which was led by him until 2019.[34] In the article “The walls spoke when no one else would”,[35] which is part of the book “Sexual Misconduct in Academia”,[36] the three researchers point out three central figures: the “Star Professor”, the “Apprentice” and a “Watcher”. According to the female researchers’ curricula, all three worked for several years as researchers at CES in
Coimbra. In the article, Boaventura de Sousa Santos has the code name “Star Professor” and the professor and co-coordinator of a doctoral program, Bruno Sena Martins, is called the “Apprentice”.[37] In 2018, according to the researchers-complainants, a
graffiti on the walls of CES which is located on the premises of the Polo I campus of the University of Coimbra, allowed them to realise that they were "not completely alone". The title of the article, "The walls spoke when no one else would", refers to this graffiti, which was always hurriedly erased by order of the university.[38] The complainants describe a modus operandi where the Star Professor touched on the knee of the female researcher under his supervision, asking her to deepen their mutual relationship in exchange of academic support, and allude to group dinners in restaurants of Coimbra and parties in private houses where the stalkers used to harass their subordinates.[39] According to
Diário de Notícias, the Watcher (Sentinela or Vigilante in Portuguese) was Maria Paula Meneses, coordinating researcher at CES.[40]
Contacted by Diário de Notícias, Boaventura de Sousa Santos recognized himself in the description of the former students, but denied all the accusations of misconduct and claimed he is being a
cancel culture[41] victim.[42][43][44][45] According to the academic, he never has met two of the co-authors, Catarina Laranjeiro and Miye Nadya Tom. Sousa Santos said he recognized the main author, Lieselotte Viaene (Belgian anthropologist with a PhD in law from
Ghent University in 2011, Professor at the Department of Social Sciences of the
University Carlos III de Madrid, and holder of a prestigious
ERC Grant).[46][47] He states he met her twice, first as her
Marie Curie Fellowship supervisor, and another "to solve the problems of incorrect and undisciplined behavior".[48] He claims CES opened a disciplinary process and denied being host institution of her ERC Grant application.[48] Sousa Santos states this case as the main motivation behind the accusations, classifying them as a "despicable act of institutional and personal revenge".[48]
Further accusations
After those declarations became public, the Brazilian congresswoman, and member of the
Municipal Chamber of Belo Horizonte,
Bella Gonçalves, a politician of Brazil's
Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL),[49] former student at the research centre CES in Coimbra, announced she had been sexually assaulted by Boaventura de Sousa Santos in the exact same way described in the article.[50] In 2014, the year of the episode, she was under 30 and the professor was over 70 when she received an invitation to discuss her research work at Sousa Santos' apartment and was touched inappropriately while Sousa Santos suggested a sexual relationship in exchange for academic support.[51] Because she did not give in to harassment, she suffered reprisals from the professor. The day after the supposed invitation to "deepen the relationship", Boaventura Sousa Santos would have criticised "in an aggressive way" the work that she and her boyfriend, who was also a student at CES, had been developing. She told the newspaper that, at the time, she reported the case to the CES management, who would have suggested she changed her advisor, arguing the professor was "untouchable".[52] She says that because of what happened, she decided to return to Brazil and finish her doctorate degree at a local university. After returning to Brazil, the former student says, she received an email from Boaventura de Sousa Santos. In it, the professor is said to have apologised for his behaviour, excusing himself by saying that he had fallen in love with her.[53]
The Argentinean indigenous
left-wing activist
Moira Ivana Millán had already told an Argentinean radio program about an episode of harassment to which she was subjected in Coimbra, Portugal, in 2010, by sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos when the man was around 70 and Moira Millán was 40, accusing him of conducts of moral and sexual harassment. The episode happened in the course of a visit to Coimbra by invitation of Sousa Santos after Moira Millán has been asked by him to make a presentation about her activist interests and achievements for a
postgraduate class.[54] In June 2022, during a meeting of indigenous women in Mexico, she also spoke about the Boaventura de Sousa Santos' unconsummated attempt to have a nonconsensual sexual relation at his house, where she went in order to take some books by invitation of Sousa Santos. This was after a supposedly group dinner at a restaurant in Coimbra where Millán said Sousa Santos appeared alone without any member of his team and where she started to feel harassed due to the flirtatious behaviour of Sousa Santos during that evening repast.[55][56]
Ivana Millán has also spoken about another female academic that shared with her similar experiences[57] and stated in the course of the
media frenzy generated by the article "The walls spoke when no one else would", in 2023, that she was planning to formally
denounce Sousa Santos to legal authorities in Coimbra.[57] Since Sousa Santos is regarded as a left-wing intellectual and a self-proclaimed staunch defender of
human,
female and
indigenous rights,[58][59][60][61] Moira Ivana Millán said she was advised not to talk about it so as not to appear to be playing "the
right wing's game".[62] This case prompted criticism from
Carlos Guimarães Pinto, MP of the party
Liberal Initiative in the Portuguese Parliament, who described the CES as a state-funded “nursery of the most radical left” on 27 April 2023 in the Portuguese Parliament, while Bloco de Esquerda, Livre and Partido Socialista MPs expressed disagreement with Guimarães Pinto's remarks. Guimarães Pinto stressed that the themes addressed by the CES "are always the same: anti-capitalism, against Western liberal democracies and the instigation of an intolerant sectarian agenda based on permanent conflict".[63][64][65] Also on 27 April, resorting to RTP state-run television channel[66] in order to publicly clarify his point of view about the recounting of the facts, Boaventura de Sousa Santos denied the accusations and stated Millán's staying expenses in Coimbra were paid for by him, he didn't assault her, he was always polite and professional including at the restaurant O Trovador, she was never invited into his house, and emails were exchanged in a cordial tone between them after her stay in Coimbra, including emails where she asked him for money to pay living expenses and future activist projects such as a documentary. Boaventura de Sousa Santos published an email exchange between himself and Moira Millán,[67][68] before and after her visit to CES, and demanded a public apology from Millán, who responded by standing by her allegations.[69]
Reactions
The Center for Social Studies (CES), at the University of Coimbra, suspended all activities of Sousa Santos and Sena Martins[70] while an independent commission investigates the claims.[71] The Ombudsman of the institution argues she has not received any complaints of harassment within the institution in the two years she has been in those functions.[72] Some victims told the media that their ability to consider a formal complaint was inhibited because
Maria Irene Ramalho, Sousa Santos' wife, belonged to the CES
ethics committee that would receive the complaints from students and analyze their merit.[73][74][75] Others argue her limited effect since she was a member of the ethics committee starting in February 2022.[76] She stopped being a member on April 2023, coinciding with the allegations becoming public. In September 2023, CES created an independent commission to produce a formal report with conclusions,[77] which eventually confirmed the sexual harassment accusations.[78]
Simultaneously to the CES suspension, Sousa Santos decided to suspend all his activities at CES [79] and made himself available to any investigation,[80][81] urging for an independent commission to be created to clarify the facts. In June 2023, Sousa Santos wrote an opinion piece in which he shows some self-criticism regarding the events described in the accusations, arguing he belongs to a generation with a sexist culture, although he continues to reject the allegations, highlighting his fight for equality.[82] Some academics have publicly supported de Sousa Santos, criticizing the initial article methodologically,[83][84] or as a form of
lawfare.[85] Some journalists have also expressed their support.[86]
250 academics and cultural workers (later reaching 800 signatories[87]) signed a manifesto supporting the women harassed by Sousa Santos, stating the public allegations are "the tip of the iceberg".[88] As a response, another 80 academics, including Nobel laureate
Pérez Esquivel, signed a manifesto of support and defense of Sousa Santos,[89] claiming "it is suffering from a smear campaign based on unproven accusations."
In July 2023, the publisher Routledge withdrew the book "Sexual Misconduct in Academia" from publication.[93][94] This book included the initial article. In September 2023,
Taylor & Francis, owner of Routledge, made a statement[95] arguing they had received "legal threats from various parties" and thus decided for the withdrawal. As a reaction, beyond the social media uproar,[96][97] an open letter to Routledge received the support of 1,200 academics, asking the publisher to "state why they have removed" the book, and to "reinstate [it]" and "stand up to legal threats".[98]
Report by the Independent Commission
On 13 March 2024, the 114-page report by the Independent Commission of the Centre for Social Studies (CES) at the University of Coimbra confirmed the existence of evidence of
abuse of power and
sexual harassment by Boaventura de Sousa Santos and other
senior, leading or chief researchers at CES.[99] In addition to this report,[100] the CES apologised "to people who consider themselves victims of harassing or abusive behaviour" and promised to take action and provide reparations.[101][102] The CES claimed it would hand the evidence to the public prosecutor office to consider further legal actions.[103][78]
In the report, the Independent Commission states it gathered testimonies of 32 people presenting allegations, 78% women, where around half were victims and the rest witnesses. Most part were students and recent PhDs, and they spoke of moral harassment (28%), sexual harassment and sexual abuse (27%) and abuse of power (27%).[104] The report speaks of perpetrators systematic blurring of professional and private life, situations of non-consensual touching, encouraging alcohol drinking, and offers of academic benefits in exchange of sexual favours.[104] The report covers 14 people accussed, in three groups of responsibilities: of committing the acts, cover-ups and negligence.[100]
Sousa Santos expressed both relief and concerns about the report, arguing there were no direct accussations against him, and that he doesn't agree with some conclusions.[103]
Activist Moira Millán criticized the report, arguing the commission did not name the abusers, did not apologize to victims outside academia. She announced she will initiate legal actions against the university,[105] on top of her legal action against Santos.[106]
A year after the first accusations of sexual harassment, and as soon as the report by the independent commission was made public, Boaventura de Sousa Santos was removed from his position as a judge at the International Rights of Nature Tribunal.[107][108]
Personal life
Boaventura de Sousa Santos is married[109] to
Maria Irene Ramalho, professor emerita of
American Studies and
Feminist Studies[109] at the Faculty of Arts of the
University of Coimbra (FLUC), as well as a former Assistant Professor International in the Department of
Comparative Literature at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison.[110] She was also a researcher at the Centre for Social Studies (CES) founded and led by her husband Boaventura de Sousa Santos,[111][112] as well as a member of the CES ethics committee.[113] The couple has children.[110] He owns the
farmhouse in Penacova that belonged to his paternal grandparents before belonging to his father, and uses it as a second home after his main residence in Coimbra.[11] He has the eye condition called
amblyopia.
Selected works
His PhD thesis has not only been considered a landmark in the
Sociology of Law,[citation needed] but has greatly impacted his life. He has published widely on globalization, sociology of law and the state, epistemology, democracy and human rights, and his works have been published in Portuguese, Spanish, English, Italian, French, German and Mandarin.
Among his most recent and relevant publications are:[114][115][116]
1991: State, Law and Social Struggles.
1998: Reinventing Democracy, Reinventing the State. 1998. Lisbon.
1998: La globalización del derecho: los nuevos caminos de la regulación y la emancipación (The globalization of law: the new paths of regulation and emancipation). Bogotá: ILSA, Ediciones Universidad Nacional de Colombia.
1998: De la mano de Alicia. Lo Social y lo político en la postmodernidad. Bogotá: Siglo del Hombre Editores and Universidad de los Andes.
2000: Critique of the Indolent Reason. Against the waste of experience. Bilbao: Editora Desclée de Brouwer.
2004: Democracy and Participation: El ejemplo del presupuesto participativo de Porto Alegre. Mexico: Quito: Abya-yala.
ISBN968-16-7255-0
2004: Democratizar la democracia: Los caminos de la democracia participativa. Mexico: F.C.E.
ISBN968-16-7255-0
2004: Escrita INKZ. Anti-manifesto para uma arte incapaz. Rio de Janeiro: Aeroplano.
2005: World Social Forum. Manual de Uso. Barcelona: Icaria.
2005: El milenio huérfano: ensayo para una nueva cultura política. Madrid: Trotta.
ISBN978-84-8164-750-1
2005: La universidad en el siglo xxi. Para una reforma democrática y emancipadora de la universidad (with Naomar de Almeida Filho). Miño y Dávila Editores.
2006 : The Heterogeneous State and Legal Pluralism in Mozambique, Law & Society Review, 40, 1: 39-75.
2007: The Reinvention of the State and the Plurinational State. Cochabamba: International Alliance CENDA-CEJIS-CEDIB, Bolivia.
2007: Law and globalization from below. Towards a cosmopolitan legality. With Rodríguez Garavito, César A. (Eds.), Barcelona: Univ. Autónoma Metropolitan de México / Anthropos.
ISBN978-84-7658-834-5
2008: Conocer desde el Sur: Para una cultura política emancipatoria. La Paz: Plural Editores.
2008: Reiventar la democracia, reinventar el estado (Reviving democracy, reinventing the state). Spain: Sequitur.
2009: Critical Legal Sociology: For a New Common Sense of Law. Madrid: Trotta.
ISBN978-84-8164-983-3
2009: Thinking the State and Society: Current Challenges. Argentina: Hydra Books.
ISBN978-987-25178-1-6
2009: An epistemology of the SOUTH. With María Paula (Eds.) Mexico: Siglo XXI Editores.
2010: Refounding the State in Latin America: Perspectives from an Epistemology of the South. Mexico: Siglo XXI Editores.
ISBN978-607-03-0242-8
2018: Constructing the Epistemologies of the South. Antología Esencial (two volumes). Buenos Aires: CLACSO.
ISBN978-987-722-364-4
2019: The End of the Cognitive Empire. La afirmación de las epistemologías del Sur. Madrid: Trotta.
ISBN978-84-9879-780-0
2019: The pluriverse of human rights. The diversity of struggles for dignity. Co-authored by Bruno Sena. Madrid: Akal.
ISBN978-607-98185-6-2
2019: Global learnings. Decolonizing, demercantilizing and depatriarchalizing from epistemologies of the South. Co-authored by Antoni Aguiló. Barcelona: Icaria.
ISBN978-84-9888-874-4.
2020: Knowledge born in struggles. Constructing epistemologies of the South. Co-authored by Maria Paula Meneses. Madrid: Akal.
ISBN978-607-8683-38-3.
2020: In the workshop of the artisan sociologist. Madrid: Morata.
ISBN978-84-7112-987-1
2020: The cruel pedagogy of the virus. Translation by Paula Vasile. Buenos Aires: CLACSO.
ISBN978-987-722-599-0
2021: The future begins now. From pandemic to utopia. Madrid: Akal.
ISBN978-84-460-4976-0
2021: Decolonizing Constitutionalism. Beyond false or impossible promises. Co-authored by Sara Araújo and Orlando Aragón Andrade. Madrid: Akal.
ISBN978-607-8683-59-8
2022: Economies of Good Living. Against the waste of experiences. Co-authored by Teresa Cunha. Madrid: Akal.
ISBN978-607-8683-97-0
^Sociais, CES-Centro de Estudos.
"Boaventura de Sousa Santos". CES - Centro de Estudos Sociais (in Portuguese). Retrieved 2023-04-17.
^de Sousa Santos, Boaventura (2006). The Rise of the Global Left: The World Social Forum and Beyond. London, United Kingdom: Zed Books.
ISBN1-84277-801-3.
^
abcde Sousa Santos, Boaventura (2013). "Reflections". Development and Change (Interview). Interviewed by Aram Ziai. Kassel, Amsterdam: Institute of Social Studies: The Hague.
^Correa, Rafael (2012). Latin American Critical Thought: Theory and Practice. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales. p. 213.
ISBN978-987-1891-05-4.
^[Boaventura de Sousa Santos insiste que não assediou a ativista argentina Moira Millán "Boaventura de Sousa Santos insiste que não assediou a ativista argentina Moira Millán"]. {{
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