Hunting and crusades: reflections on moral panic and human rights between Brazil and United Kingdom

Abstract

My PhD research intends to discuss Moral Panic in the scope of the sociology of violence, punishment and social representations of crime and human rights. For the purpose of this analysis, during the internship I will conduct a more specialized study of the Moral Panic approach, both in theory and methodology. At the end of this study, I will have a mapping of the discussion and its main developments. Therefore, this experience will provide two important results: first, it will help me to develop my ongoing PhD research. Second, it will contribute to bring the mapping and updating of the main bibliography of Moral Panic to the discussion in Brazil, since there is not much production on the subject in Portuguese. As an auxiliary objective, I intend to conduct a very brief comparative empirical study between Brazil and the UK to identify the similarities and differences between the Moral Panic processes on both sides, especially about punishment and human rights. In this sense, it should be possible to compare the types of discourses and their means of realization. In short, the main question is: does the human rights issues trigger Moral Panic in the UK as it does in Brazil? In what way? (AU)