Dr Marcus De Matos
Senior Lecturer in Law
Research area(s)
- Brazilian & Latin American law, history and politics
- Critical legal studies and methods
- Feminist Approaches to Law
- History of Law, Racism and Colonialism
- Human Rights history, methods and philosophy
- Jurisprudence (Legal Theory)
- Legal history of Fascism, Populism and Authoritarianism
- Law and Film
- Law and Literature
- Law and Religion
- Legal methods & legal systems
- Natural Law and its critics
- Public Law & Political Theology
- Transitional justice and The Right to Memory
Research Interests
My research is focused on the notion of state sovereignty as a founding paradox in legal and constitutional theory. I have developed a visual investigation on the notion of sovereignty by taking it not only as a founding concept of modern legal theory, but also as a trope: a special kind of narrative, illustrated, capable of being modernized, and yet maintaining its initial trends; one that is foundational and colonial, and capable of institutionalizing sovereigns and subjecting subjects. My research discusses the problematic relation between law and image from the analysis of digital pictures of torture and surveillance produced by contemporary films, social media and government agencies. It is based on methodological approaches developed in the fields of critical legal studies and visual culture studies and proposes a new iconocritical method to analyse the entanglement of aesthetics and authority in the functions of the role of images and the rule of law. This has led me to investigate different ways in which legal subjectivity can be designed to accommodate notions of state sovereignty that are supposed to be incompatible with democracy and the rule of law - such as in transitional, post-colonial or authoritarian political contexts. I am particularly interested in the collusion of legal, political, native and theological conceptions of sovereignty in Latin American, African and Iberian countries.
A second strand of my research incorporates my government-based work experience in human rights and public policies. I am interested in issues such as constitutional & political freedom, memory & truth, separation of powers, freedom of speech and religion; protection of witnesses, journalists and human rights activist; equality, native rights and racism; slavery, human trafficking, torture and surveillance. I am also interested in understanding how technique and technology currently affect these issues and their legal and political contexts.
I currently co-lead two Research Groups:
I have received the BRIEF Award 2023/2024 to develop my project "Human Rights, Religion and the Cold War: building an archive about the Persecution of Brazilian Religious Leaders."
I have recently worked on two funded projects:
- "Human Rights & Religion: the legacy of the Brazilian 1962 North-Eastern Conference for public theology and democracy", funded by 明星八卦 Institute of Communities and Societies (2021-2022).
- "Living avatars: projections of self, others and power," funded by BRIL, the 明星八卦 Research Interdisciplinary Lab (2021-2022).
I am currently an international collaborator to the - The History of Brazilian Justice: delivering judgment and evidence in Barra Mansa City trials (1920-1988). This is a project lead by State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), and funded by FAPERJ, CAPES and Barra Mansa City Council Culture Foundation.
Research grants and projects
Grants
Funder: British Council
Duration: November 2023 - November 2024
Funder: BRUNEL RESEARCH INITIATIVE & ENTERPRISE FUND (BRIEF)
Duration: August 2023 - July 2024
Funder: Institute of Communities and Societies
Duration: March 2022 - August 2022
This project will investigate the outcomes of a religious Conference that reshaped the borders between human rights and religion in the 1960s, by changing the understanding of church and society relations in Latin America. Human rights and religion share a long history in Natural Law concepts and Theology but have recently been understood as conflicting languages. On the one hand, religious discourse has been presented as raising different and opposing expectations to those granted by human rights. On the other, human rights have been criticized for their compatibility and acceptance of social & economic inequality. In 2022, Brazilian protestant minorities celebrate the 60th anniversary of the 1962 North-eastern Conference whose title was shocking to both political and ecclesiastical authorities: 鈥淐hrist and the Brazilian revolutionary process.鈥 The focus of this Pilot project is to facilitate the writing of a grant proposal that will put together an original digital archive of video-interviews with those 鈥 then young 鈥 activists of religious and student organisations who were directedly involved in the 1962 Conference. This project will strengthen the position of a grant proposal to advance scholarship and develop new research methods to investigate the tensions between human rights & religion on a global scale.
Funder: Rio de Janeiro State Foundation (FAPERJ)
Duration: January 2022 - January 2024
O projeto pretende fazer uma história do Judiciário brasileiro a partir do ato de julgar, tendo como fonte os processos da cidade de Barra Mansa entre 1820 e 1988, que estão nos arquivos da Fundação de Cultura, Esporte e Lazer de Barra Mansa.
Funder: BRIL - 明星八卦 Research Interdisciplinary Lab
Duration: November 2021 - July 2022
How does the increasing use of avatars change our sense of self, our relation to others, and the power structures we live in? When we think about avatars, we think of James Cameron鈥檚 blue creatures on Pandora, or orcs and elves in fantasy online games. They could not be further from our everyday lives. But we all have digital representations of ourselves, not only in online games, but also on social media, and increasingly in many areas of our day-to-day lives, in those digital spaces in which we spend increasing amounts of time. But, how do we relate to these avatars? Are they us? Are they part of us, better versions of us, not us at all? Are they ours? Do we own them? What about other people鈥檚 avatars? How do we relate to them? How do they fit within our lives and our societies? These are some of the questions we mean to answer as part of our multidisciplinary project 鈥淟iving avatars: projections of self, others, and power.鈥 In a world increasingly more digital, in which AI-generated avatars become influencers, it is important to address these questions before we endanger the way we perceived ourselves, our social interactions and how we empower them on digital platforms.
Funder: National Council of Research (CNPq), Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology
Duration: June 2020 - June 2021
Postdoctoral research
Funder: The Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities.
Duration: June 2015 - June 2015
Funder: Birkbeck Law School.
Duration: June 2015 - June 2015
Match funding
Funder: Harvard Institute for Global Law and Policy
Duration: December 2014 - January 2015
Funder: Institute of Social Sciences (ICS), University of Lisbon.
Duration: June 2014 - August 2014
Funder: Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior
Duration: October 2012 - October 2016
PhD funding - full scholarship for international students
Funder: Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior
Duration: October 2012 - October 2016
Fully funded PhD
Funder: Secretaria Especial dos Direitos Humanos (MDH), Brazilian Federal Government
Duration: January 2011 - January 2013
Funder: Association Internationale Jacques Ellul 鈥 AIJE
Duration: October 2010 - October 2010
Funder: Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior
Duration: June 2010 - June 2011