Artur Silva Lins
Doctoral Guest Researcher (Research Grant Alexander von Humboldt Foundation)
Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies
February 2025–March 2025
Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil
arturslins@gmail.com
Title of current research project: "Strikes in Rio de Janeiro during the Fourth Republic: A History of the Organizational and Institutional Culture of the Working Class (1945–1964)"
Academic Profile
The Fourth Republic, opened in 1946 in Brazil and ended by the civilian-military coup, in 1964, was intense in terms of social struggles and political participation. In this process, strikes were a classic example of intervention of the working class. However, in Brazilian and Brazilianist historiography, such a theme is very concentrated at the São Paulo working class experience. On the other hand, theoretically, I think that the discussions about Global Legal History can be applied in these cases. Primarily, strikes did mean, not only in Brazil, a struggle produced from the "juridical consciousness" of the working class to interfere in the law that regulates the rights of strike and the state mediation in the conflicts of capital and labor.
Therefore, my research project highlights the strikes that occurred in Rio de Janeiro, then Federal District, and problematizes - in a comparative way on other international experiences - their impact in a variety of institutions and in the own organization of the working class during the IV Republic (1946–64). Specifically, I study the impact of the strikes on the sentences of the Labor Justice and Ministry of Labor about wage increases and other working conditions, and on the acts perpetrated by the different wings of Police. On the other hand, I focus on the repertoire organization of strikes out of the traditional way to study it. Instead of syndicates, I prefer to understand the building of those movements by the bonds of solidarity built in the neighborhoods and in a variety of sociability spaces linked to leisure and culture.
2025
Visiting Researcher, University of Bonn
since 2024
Visiting Student, Center for Studies in Politics and Social History, Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro
since 2023
Doctoral Student, Universidade Federal Fluminense
M.A. in History, Universidade Federal Fluminense
- 2024. "Beyond the whiteness quota: Racism and Sexism as a Despotic Discipline in the Factory Economy of Rio de Janeiro (1945–60)." In História e Economia 30: 35–52.
- 2024. "Entre escândalos, inovações e neurose anti-trabalhista: uma perspectiva ampliada das estratégias patronais de expansão dos lucros." In IV Jornada Discente de História Econômica: 55–78.
- 2022. "'Under the sign of the Red Danger': the carioca press against the return of the influence of the communist party in the union movement (1950–54)." In Revista Antígona 1(1): 121–159.
- 2021. "'A reaction urges against the left': the press intervention on the trade unionism reorganization in Rio de Janeiro (1950–54)." In Revista Discente Ofícios de Clio 6(11).