Concentration Area and Research Lines

Concentration Areas and Research Lines

The course is composed of the area of concentration, "Modernity and Public Policies", unfolding, in turn, in two lines of research: "Sustainability and Social Protection" and "Technological Change and the Human Condition".

Concentration Area "Modernity and Public Policies"

Starting from the understanding of fragmentation and the disciplining of scientific knowledge operated throughout modernity, it turns to methods and theories capable of facing contemporary problems (theoretical and practical) and building subsidies for its confrontation in the field of public policies. For this, methodological strategies and interdisciplinary approaches are constructed in the field of human sciences and applied social sciences, from perspectives that dialogue and integrate knowledge from different areas. The research lines demand such approaches, allowing to face these issues by two axes, expressing issues beyond the boundaries of basic and applied knowledge that involve both the theoretical context of social, technological and environmental changes that occurred in the midst of modernity and their implications for the human condition, sustainability and for the formulation, implementation and evaluation of public policies.

Research Line "Sustainability and Social Protection"

It turns to environmental changes, territorial dynamics, sustainability, vulnerability and security, addressed in the context of discussions on development, on the one hand, and social protection and health promotion, on the other. It deals with the causes, consequences and dynamics of society-environment interactions, manifested in problems of management of productive systems, planning of development actions and their consequences for the vulnerability of populations and ecosystems. The subjects of this line of research will allow the understanding and confrontation of problems related to environmental changes and their relations with social changes, which have repercussions on the production of risks, economic processes and vulnerability of the population and institutions, with a view to the management and formulation of public policies.

Research Line "Technological Changes and Human Condition"

It turns to ethical and intersubjective principles that refer to the fragmentation of knowledge that occurs in modernity—in particular by scientific and technological changes—and its reverberations in subjectivity, in the diffusion and construction of humanistic values and in the way of producing and institutionalizing knowledge in the form of public policies. In the context of the current technical society, it is necessary to understand the implications of technological transformations and the pattern of development of modernity on intersubjective relations and the construction of knowledge, requiring public policies adhering to these conditions, especially in the field of science, politics and values, which contribute to the formulation of policies that promote a requalification of the sense of man and humanity.

The relationship between concentration area and research lines organizes and articulates the production and performance of teachers with students, both in the development of subjects and research activities and guidance, arranged in laboratories and research groups.