Camila Braga
Camila Braga
Assistant professor and post-doctoral fellow at the Institute of International Relations (IRI-USP)
Associated researcher for the International Relations Research Center (Núcleo de Pesquisa em Relações Internacionais, NUPRI) at the University of São Paulo
Camila de Macedo Braga, PhD. in Political Science, with an emphasis on International Security and Peace Studies. Currently, Camila Braga is an assistant professor and post-doctoral fellow at the Institute of International Relations (IRI-USP), and also an associated researcher for the International Relations Research Center (Núcleo de Pesquisa em Relações Internacionais, NUPRI) at the University of São Paulo - USP, São Paulo, Brasil; and Global Fellow of the Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies (CHRHS) at Brown University, Providence. As such, since 2018, she coordinates the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies (CCP) at the University of São Paulo, expanding the focus of research on structural and armed violence and organized crime in non-traditional contexts, such as established democratic societies. At the present, CCP is developing a project in partnership with Fundação Perseu Abramo (FPA), and CHRHS support, to address how the multiple peripheries in the national territory have experienced the current crisis (COVID-19 pandemic).
Before that, between 2011 and 2017, Camila worked on a number of cases of State promoted or endorsed violence and armed conflict, in distinct parts of the world: in Darfur (Sudan), during the MPhil. in Peace, Defense, and International Security; in East Timor, during the doctorate in Political Science (thesis to be published this year); in Brazil, during the mandate of the National Truth Commission (CNV), with a focus on gender issues, and also within an individual research project (supported by the NGO Viva Rio) on citizen security problems emerging from the pacification program conducted in Rio de Janeiro’s “favelas” from 2008-2016. Hence, she has research on security governance and peace operations; security sector reform; peacebuilding and peace development; while human security, social resilience, gender, migration, and violence (cultural, structural and armed) operate as cross-cutting dimensions.
From the Ph.D. research to individual consultancies, Camila’s professional academic experience has been focused on research, fundraising, and project development. As NUPRI’s associated researcher, she collaborated on a project to produce a Political Atlas on Peace and Conflict in Latin America (Project: ‘Stable peace, conflict, and resolution in Latin America: representation of regional security systems in a political atlas’), funded by CNPq/MCTI (2015-2018) and FAPESP (2018-2020) under Prof. Rafael Duarte Villa’s leadership and supervision. The project mixed both quantitative and qualitative data analysis. Additionally, an instrumental part of this project was the creation of the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies (CCP, in Portuguese). She is also a member of the Peace, Conflict and Critical Security Studies Network (PCECS, in Portuguese). Between 2020 and 2022, she was also part of the CALAS program, within the Laboratory Visions of Peace, concluding ethnographic research on peace building and peace development in Central America.
As an associate member of the International Relations Research Center (IRRC) at the University of São Paulo, Braga is co-producing a Political Atlas of Peace and Conflict in Latin America. She is also co-coordinating the creation of an Observatory to follow the negotiations and implementation of the peace accords in Colombia. During 2015 and 2016, Braga was part of the organizing committee for the First Brazilian Encounter on Peace Studies. Currently, she is working as a collaborator in the pro-defense / CAPES project to create an online Security and Defense Glossary for the Defense and Security Studies Group at UNESP. In 2015, Braga was selected for the Visiting Fellowship Program of the Graduate Institute Geneva, for a research internship at the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding (CCDP), under the supervision of Prof. Keith Krause, Ph.D. The project, entitled “The Pacification of Timor Leste: building peace or an arrested peace process”, aims to understand how peace (liberal or not) was developed on the ground and if it addressed the main roots of violence within the region. Between 2013 and 2014, she worked as a researcher for the Brazilian National Truth Commission (CNV), initially on a voluntary basis and, from January to November 2014, as a researcher contracted by the UNDP. During this period, Braga was associated with the Dictatorship and Gender GT, working mainly with grave human rights violations against women and children at the time of the dictatorship. In this role, she joined the team responsible for preparing the 10th Chapter of the CNV Final Report.
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