18.12.2024 | 16:00 c.t. - 18:00  Hörsaal III, Van't-Hoff-Str. 8

See poster here.

About:

Pablo Holmes is Associate Professor at the Institute of Political Science (UnB) and the Graduate Program at the Faculty of Law at the University of Brasília (UnB). He holds a law degree (2004) and a master’s degree in law (2007) from the Faculty of Law of Recife - UFPE, and a PhD in sociology from the University of Flensburg, Germany (2012). From December 2024 to December 2025, he will serve as a visiting scholar, supported by an experienced researcher fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (AvH), at the Faculty of Law at the Free University of Berlin and the Institute of History at the University of Hannover. Between 2022 and 2024, he was President of the Brazilian Association of Sociology of Law Researchers (ABRASD) and previously served as the head of the graduate program in Political Science at UnB (2015–2017). He has also been a Käte Hamburger Fellow at the Centre for Global Cooperation Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany (2017–2018), a visiting scholar at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University, Canada (2020), and a visiting researcher at the Center for European Politics and Law at the University of Bremen, Germany (2013). His work lies at the intersection of democratic theory, constitutional theory, and social theory, with a focus on constitutional sociology, globalization, and the judiciary.

The project:

Title: Towards a Constitutional Sociology of Property Rights:  The production of structural social exclusion in postolonial Brazil.

The project explores the social and constitutional dimensions of property rights, combining theoretical and empirical analyses. It challenges conventional economic and legal theories by proposing an analysis of property as a normative construct embedded in broader societal structures of differentiation. While engaging with Luhmann's concept of structural coupling between law and the economy to frame initial inquiries, the project advances beyond this perspective to investigate how property rights both stabilize expectations around resource control and use and simultaneously reflect and reproduce societal power dynamics and normative hierarchies.

Empirically, the project examines the transformation of property rights in 19th-century postcolonial Brazil, focusing on the introduction of modern legal frameworks. It analyzes how these new forms of property, while fostering commodification and economic modernization, often reinforced hierarchical dependencies, as seen in the persistence of slave commodification and personal networks of privilege. This Brazilian experience underscores the uneven and contingent nature of property rights evolution, challenging linear, Eurocentric narratives.

The project advocates for a constitutional sociology of property rights rather than an approach limited to the allocation of economic rights. It emphasizes how constitutional norms, intertwined with broader forms of societal differentiation, shape societal structures and legitimize power hierarchies. By linking local historical developments to global processes, it broadens functional differentiation theories and enhances understanding of the complex interplay between law, economy, and politics in shaping modern property relations.