Biography

Sara Araújo is a researcher at the Centre for Social Studies (CES) and invited assistant professor in sociology at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra (FEUC). She holds a PhD in Law, Justice and Citizenship in the 21st century and co-founded the PhD Programme in Sociology of the State, Law and Justice (CES and FEUC) that she now co-coordinates. Between 2011 and 2016, she was a member of the Coordination Board of the ERC Alice project led by Boaventura Sousa Santos, which was successfully transformed into the burgeoning Research Programme in Epistemologies of the South (CES). Within this Research Programme, Sara co-coordinated four editions of the ground-breaking Epistemologies of the South Summer School and co-organized several workshops of the Popular University of Social Movements (UPMS). She has a scientific path devoted to interdisciplinary studies, starting in 2000 under the work developed within the Permanent Observatory of Justice and engaging more recently in debates with researchers from the Centre of Neurosciences (CnC University of Coimbra). In the last years, she organised many scientific events and developed multiple activities that combine science, art and knowledge born in social struggles (concerts, concert-conferences, performances, exhibitions, workshops, forums, among others). After working for three years in the Permanent Observatory for the Portuguese Justice (2000-2005), she was part of the research team of the Legal and Judicial Training Centre of Mozambique (2005-2006) and associated researcher at the Centre for African Studies of the Eduardo Mondlane University (2008-2010) (Mozambique). In 2015 she was a visiting Scholar at the Law School of the University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA). More recently she undertook funded research for a diagnosis study of justice in East-Timor (2016-2017), and was a senior researcher at the European project "ETHOS - Towards a European THeory Of juStice and fairness" (2017-2019). Under the latter, she co-authored articles and reports on social justice, austerity discourses, social dialogue, alternative dispute resolution mechanisms and citizens' vulnerabilities. She was co-editor of the books Decolonising constitutionalism. Beyond false of impossible lessons (AKAL, 2022; Routledge, forthcoming) and Dynamics of Legal Pluralism in Mozambique" (Kapicua, 2012). She has published several chapters in co-edited books and articles in scientific national and international journals on legal pluralism, access to justice, epistemologies of the south and the challenges to legal thinking. She has fieldwork experience in Portugal, Mozambique and East-Timor and extensive experience of working in large, international and interdisciplinary teams. In 2008 she was awarded the individual prize Agostinho da Silva (Lisbon Academy of Sciences).