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Fiona Macaulay

Professor, Gender, Peace & Development

Area
School of Social Sciences
Faculty of Mgmt, Law & Social Sciences
Language
French
Portuguese
Spanish
German
E-mail
Phone
Fiona Macaulay

Biography

My undergraduate degree was in Modern Languages (French and German) at the University of Oxford. I subsequently read Women's Studies at the University of Massachusetts on a Rotary Foundation Graduate Scholarship, and that got me interested in the US-sponsored civil wars in Central America. I travelled to Nicaragua and spend a year teaching English at the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua in León. I got involved in campaigning on human rights issues in the region, and worked for a student-based social justice organization, Third World First (now People and Planet). I returned to the University of Oxford to do an MPhil in Latin American Studies and a doctorate in politics, focussed on the relationship between women's representation, political parties, women's movements and public policy in Brazil and Chile.  I then joined the International Secretariat of Amnesty International as their Brazil researcher. That led me to a deeper interest in the criminal justice system, as well as human rights, in particular prison conditions. From 2000-2005 I had a joint appointment: at the Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London, lecturing on gender and development in Latin America, and at the Centre for Brazilian Studies, University of Oxford, as researcher and coordinator of the the human rights programme there, supported by the Ford Foundation. I joined the University of Bradford Peace Studies department in 2005.

Research

I have published over 50 research articles, book chapters, knowledge transfer reports, (including in Spanish and Portuguese) and two books, covering my research interests on gender, development, political parties and processes, violence, human rights and criminal justice organisations. With a background in area studies - Latin America -- my research has always been interdisciplinary, encompassing political institutions and political sociology, with strong intersections with criminology, law and public policy.

My expertise is especially centred on Brazil.  One strand of my research examines the institutional processes that drive or impede reform in the security sector (police and prisons) and in the criminal justice system. These may include social factors, such as civil society pressure, political and policy pressure (legal change), internal bureaucratic logics as well as external factors such as the influence of bilateral or multilateral assistance. My interest in the values and practices of criminal justice systems in the region dates back to my work as Brazil researcher for Amnesty International. I have secured funding over the years from a variety of sources (foundations, research councils, the British government and corporations). I have written on police and prison reform in the region, identifying wider patterns and dynamics, as well as engaging in country-level analyses, both of good practice (for example, the Resocialization Centres in São Paulo) and of the many entrenched, structural problems besetting the Brazilian prison system. I have provided several expert witness reports on prison conditions in Brazil in extradition cases. 

I have current research on the intersection of the security sector with the politics of representation and policy-making, supported by a grant from the British Academy/Leverhulme. With my research colleague Frederico de Almeida of UNICAMP, I am analysing the migration of security actors (mainly police) into politics, a phenomenon I had noticed and documented for some years. The number of police officers entering elected office quadrupled in the October election that brought former army officer, Jair Bolsonaro, to the presidency. These actors often constitute themselves as a public security cross-party caucus (bancada da bala) in legislative spaces This issue has much wider relevance beyond Brazil for theories of democratic decay, the emergence and spread of far-right nationalist-populism, civilian-military alliances outside of strictly ‘military’ regimes, military/police ‘developmentalism’ and democratic separation of powers.  

Another strand of my work focuses on gender. I have researched a number of interlinked areas, with a common thread of examining how women’s groups influence policy making (at a macro and micro level), both within the conduit of political representation, and outside of it. One of the policy areas I have analysed over the years is responses to domestic violence, and the interplay of domestic and international forces on how local institutions begin to change their practices. My most recent book analyses how Brazilian society and criminal justice agencies have been developing effective policies and practices to tackle the problem of feminicide. 

My feminicide research demonstrates how I often work at the intersection of security sector reform and gender-based violence, and pay attention to practitioner voices. I have also been able to transfer pedagogical methods that I developed with my students at Bradford to develop a training programme with the Brazilian police. In 2020 I wrote a 120 page training manual on gender-based violence for use by Brazilian police instructors to use in police academies. It is produced and distributed by the Brazilian Forum on Public Security (FBSP), a research, policy and advocacy network with which I work closely (it brings togethers policymakers, researchers and security sector actors, mainly police). This project was funded, at various stages, by the Avon Foundation, the British Embassy and Uber. 

Please check out my profiles on academia.edu and researchgate for a full listing of my publications


Research projects

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Principal Investigator

We propose to investigate the nature, the scope and the impact of a significant entry of police and security sector actors into the political field in Brazil, in a pilot study in the state of São Paulo, over the period 1994- 2018. We will map out the extent and drivers of this phenomenon: how many police-related candidates have been running for legislative office, and how many are sponsored by police corporations? What level of electoral success have they had, and why? What are their individual or collective motivations, and identities? What legislative agendas do they pursue once elected and what impact have they had? This migration between policing and political fields is unprecedented and unstudied, yet has implications for understanding new formations of representation in Brazil’s legislative spaces in a period of party system decay during a new authoritarian turn, and for public policy on law-and-order and human rights This is a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant

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Role
Principal Investigator

This project has been funded by the Avon Institute, the British Embassy in Brasília and Uber in Brazil and has been carried out in conjunction with the Brazilian Forum on Public Security, and co-investigator Juliana Martins. We investigated the need for training for Brazilian police officers on violence against women, by running a series of pilot training sessions across the country. We then wrote a training manual on gender-based violence for use by Brazilian police instructors to use in police academies and as continuing professional development. It is one element of my ongoing research on police training on gender and violence, and on police responses to gender-based violence

Teaching

I currently lead the modules Gender, Conflict and Development and Environment, Trafficking and Crime, and contribute to the modules Sustainable Cities, Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding, and International Perspectives on Crime, exploring critical approaches to development, and the policy impacts of the security-development nexus. In these I have been able to draw on my research on urban violence, criminal justice institutions, and transnational influences on policy. I also devised and have led since 2008 Gender Labs, an immersive, applied learning experience that must be undertaken by all new PSID students, which gives our students an essential grounding in a key concept for professional practice and academic research.

Before coming to the University of Bradford, I taught at the Universities of Newcastle, Oxford, and London. I have lectured across the disciplines of human geography, development, Latin American studies, sociology, political science and development. I have taught at all levels, from first year undergraduate to Masters to doctoral students. I have supervised approximately 70 final year undergraduate dissertations, around 90 Masters dissertations and have successfully seen to completion 13 doctorates, including 3 in co-supervision arrangements with other institutions.

I welcome applications from new doctoral students in the areas of: Latin America, especially Brazil, politics, political parties, police and policing, prisons and punishment, criminal justice policy, security sector reform, gender, violence reduction, and human rights. I am fluent in Portuguese and also welcome co-supervision of Brazilian research students and bolsa sanduiche.

Modules

  • Environment, Trafficking and Crime: Transnational Issues and International Governance - PES7062-B

Professional activities

  • Medal of Honour for Services to Policing (1 January 2018)

  • Athena Swan group, FOMLSS, The group convened to submit an application for Athena Swan status. (1 August 2018)

  • Various UK law firms - Expert witness reports in cases of requested extradition to Brazil

  • University of Oxford - M.Phil
  • University of Oxford - BA (Hons)
  • University of Oxford - D.Phil

  • Senior Fellow Advance HE, Senior Fellow (1 June 2020)
  • Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Fellow (1 October 2017)

Publications

  • Can't Pay, Won't Pay: Debt, Underdevelopment and Resistance

    Macaulay, Fiona and Taylor, Chris (1990) Third World First.