Dr Andreza Aruska de Souza Santos

Academics
Supervisors
Affiliates

Director, King's Brazil Institute

Senior Lecturer in Brazilian and Latin American Studies.

Research subject areas

Politics
Sociology
Community
International development

Contact details

andreza.souza_santos@kcl.ac.uk

Biography

Andreza completed her PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews, and holds a master’s degree in social sciences jointly awarded by the University of Freiburg, JNU in Delhi, and the University of KwaZulu Natal, in Durban. Andreza completed her bachelor’s degree in political science at the University of Brasilia.

Having studied in Brazil, Germany, South Africa, India and the UK, Andreza writes about Brazilian politics and city governance comparatively. Before joining King's, she was a lecturer at the University of Oxford and at Oxford she directed the Brazilian Studies Programme (2018-2023). Before that, she was a postdoctoral researcher at Oxford’s School of Anthropology, where she worked at the Urban Transformations portfolio (ESRC).

She has previously worked at Brazil’s Ministry of Social Development, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (Vienna), at the Indian Embassy in Brazil, and at the Brazilian Confederation of Municipalities.

See Andreza’s website here

Research

Informality and precariousness
Mining towns
Participatory governance
Grassroots politics
Company Towns
Cities and citizenship
The politics of health
Sub-national politics
Political Economy and Development

Main projects ongoing:

Andreza is a political anthropologist who has made substantial contributions to city governance in Brazil. She uses quantitative and qualitative data to investigate how socio-economic contexts affect political decision-making. By analyzing quantitative data such as income, employment, taxes, and indicators in health and education, combined with ethnographic research in policy councils, Andreza has observed the intersections and dynamics between formal and informal political and economic systems.

In her ethnography in Brazil, she has studied how policy meetings develop and the impact of economic indicators on participatory mechanisms. She has noted that participation is not the same as voicing concerns; people may attend meetings but remain silent. Sub-optimal decisions in policy councils are sometimes less costly for participants than confronting established powers in their towns. There is a negative relationship between participation and levels of economic dependency. While grassroots politics is a valuable resource for advocating urban amenities, it is important to consider how poverty can either mobilize or discourage participatory politics.

The following essay, published in The Architectural Review, summarizes some of Andreza's research interests: www.architectural-review.com/essays/redefining-the-brazilian-company-town.

Andreza has published a book on how mining has used cultural heritage and policy councils to advance its interests in Brazil, which has been translated into Portuguese. She has also co-edited three books on the intersections of politics and sub-national governance in emerging economies. In addition, she has published extensively on social and economic indicators, including during the pandemic, as such analyses were essential for understanding Brazil’s performance during that health crisis. Her publications include articles in journals such as The Lancet, Nature Human Behaviour, Nature Scientific Data, among others.

Andreza’s interests in local governance, combined with her multi-method skills and experience in various countries, underpin her interdisciplinary expertise and comparative research interests.

For Andreza's publications, please see her Google Scholar profile

She is also a Trustee of the IJURR Foundation and sits on the Editorial Board of the journal Brasiliana as the chief co-editor.