Papers by Sueann Caulfield
The Boundaries of Freedom, 2022
American National Biography Online, 2000
Acervo, 2017
Este artigo mostra que os defensores dos direitos LGBT prepararam o terreno para a legalizacao do... more Este artigo mostra que os defensores dos direitos LGBT prepararam o terreno para a legalizacao do casamento homoafetivo no Brasil por meio de diversas influencias culturais e do discurso dos direitos humanos. Isso possibilitou a gradual criacao de doutrina que sustentava serem as unioes homoafetivas pertinentes aos costumes do pais, e que o direito ao casamento cabia dentro dos principios constitucionais.
Hispanic American Historical Review, 2019
The case of Hermelinda Permínia de Jesus versus Roberto da Trindade de Jesus was apparently the l... more The case of Hermelinda Permínia de Jesus versus Roberto da Trindade de Jesus was apparently the last in a series of disputes over judicial legitimization to reach Brazil's Supreme Court in the late nineteenth century. Analysis of the litigation between the two claimants to the Jesus estate-one an illegitimate child, the other a former slave-reveals complex social and legal dynamics that surrounded debates over illegi-timacy and family rights throughout the nineteenth century. Digging deeper into the life story of the African-descended grandfather whose death sparked the litigation, this article contributes to the historiography on household formation and property accumulation among a small black elite in Brazil's slave society. By following the fortunes of some of his legatees, I illustrate how difficult it was for African-descended Brazilians to transfer wealth to the next generation.
Cadernos de saude publica, Jan 8, 2017
The arrival of DNA paternity testing in the 1980s was met with great enthusiasm in the Brazilian ... more The arrival of DNA paternity testing in the 1980s was met with great enthusiasm in the Brazilian courts. Yet, over the past two decades, Brazilian legal doctrine and jurisprudence have increasingly rejected DNA proof as the sine qua non for paternity cases. Instead, DNA paternity testing has generated mountains of litigation, as biological proof has been challenged by the argument that paternity is primarily "socio-affective". Leading family law specialists describe this new conception of paternity as an outcome of the "revolutionary" provisions of the 1988 Constitution, which recognizes the "pluralism" of family forms in modern society and guarantees equal family rights for all children. Without denying the significance of the constitution's dignitary framework, we show that new legal understandings of paternity represent less a paradigm shift than a continuation of longstanding historical tensions between biological and socio-cultural understandin...
Law and History Review, 2012
Over the past decade, state agencies throughout Brazil have launched initiatives that aim to defend…
Hispanic American Historical Review, 2007
This collection brings together recent scholarship that examines how understandings of honor chan... more This collection brings together recent scholarship that examines how understandings of honor changed in Latin America between political independence in the early nineteenth century and the rise of nationalist challenges to liberalism in the 1930s. These rich historical case ...
Luso-Brazilian Review, 1993
... Judge Alvaro Bernardes, in 1934, decided that CS's testi-mony was discredited because sh... more ... Judge Alvaro Bernardes, in 1934, decided that CS's testi-mony was discredited because she testified feeling pain and losing blood while the Legal-Medical Institute examination found her hymen to be complacent, "when it is known that [complacent hymens] permit painless ...
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History, 2017
Over the past forty years, increasing attention to gender and sexuality in Brazilian historiograp... more Over the past forty years, increasing attention to gender and sexuality in Brazilian historiography has given us a nuanced understanding of diverse ways in which women and men in Brazil’s past experienced patriarchy, racism, and other forms of oppression. As gender historians have shed light on how racialized and patriarchal gender and sexual roles have been reconstituted in different historical contexts, empirical studies in the field of social history have focused primarily on the historical agency of women, particularly non-elite women, who lived within or pushed against the confines of prescribed gender roles. Pioneering histories of sexual minorities have accompanied this trajectory since the 1980s, although this subfield has grown more slowly.A few nodal themes help to explain transformations in gender relations during each of the major periods of Brazil’s social and political history. Under the empire (1822–1889), honor is the entryway for analysis of gender and sexuality. Ge...
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History, 2017
Over the past forty years, increasing attention to gender and sexuality in Brazilian historiograp... more Over the past forty years, increasing attention to gender and sexuality in Brazilian historiography has given us a nuanced understanding of diverse ways in which women and men in Brazil’s past experienced patriarchy, racism, and other forms of oppression. As gender historians have shed light on how racialized and patriarchal gender and sexual roles have been reconstituted in different historical contexts, empirical studies in the field of social history have focused primarily on the historical agency of women, particularly non-elite women, who lived within or pushed against the confines of prescribed gender roles. Pioneering histories of sexual minorities have accompanied this trajectory since the 1980s, although this subfield has grown more slowly.
A few nodal themes help to explain transformations in gender relations during each of the major periods of Brazil’s social and political history. Under the empire (1822–1889), honor is the entryway for analysis of gender and sexuality. Gendered standards of honor were critical tools used to mark class and racial boundaries, and to traverse them. Historians of the imperial period also stress the centrality of gender to the social, cultural, and economic networks built by members of various occupational, familial, and kinship groups. During the First Republic (1889–1930), the focus shifts to state vigilance and social control, together with debates over modernization of sexual and gender norms, particularly regarding urban space and prostitution. In the Vargas era (1930–1945), patriarchy and racialized sexuality formed the core of intellectual constructions of the nation’s history and identity, at the same time that homosexuality and women’s and worker’s rights generated intense debate. A new emphasis on domesticity emerged in the context of developmentalism in the 1950s, helping to spur a reaction in the form of the counterculture and sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. The dictatorship (1964–1985) went to great lengths to suppress challenges to gender and sexual norms as part of its broader strategy to demobilize society and repress oppositional political movements. These challenges reemerged in the 1970s, when feminists and sexual minorities gained much greater visibility within a new wave of social movements.
The 1988 constitution articulated these movements’ aspirations for social justice and equality through its foundational principal of human dignity. Significant legal changes followed over subsequent decades, including recognition of equal labor rights for domestic and sex workers, affirmative-action policies, and the legalization of same-sex marriage, in 2011. Despite notable setbacks, the momentum toward gender and sexual equality at the start of the 21st century was remarkable. This momentum was halted by the political coup that ousted the first woman president in 2016. The anti-feminist mood that accompanied the impeachment process underscored an overarching theme that runs through the historiography of gender and sexuality in Brazil: the centrality of gender to the major legal and political shifts that mark the nation’s history.
Hispanic American Historical Review 99 (2): 209-245 , 2019
The case of Hermelinda Permínia de Jesus versus Roberto da Trindade de Jesus was apparently the l... more The case of Hermelinda Permínia de Jesus versus Roberto da Trindade de Jesus was apparently the last in a series of disputes over judicial legitimization to reach Brazil's Supreme Court in the late nineteenth century. Analysis of the litigation between the two claimants to the Jesus estate-one an illegitimate child, the other a former slave-reveals complex social and legal dynamics that surrounded debates over illegi-timacy and family rights throughout the nineteenth century. Digging deeper into the life story of the African-descended grandfather whose death sparked the litigation, this article contributes to the historiography on household formation and property accumulation among a small black elite in Brazil's slave society. By following the fortunes of some of his legatees, I illustrate how difficult it was for African-descended Brazilians to transfer wealth to the next generation.
Revista Acervo, 30/1 , 2017
Este artigo mostra que os defensores dos direitos LGBT prepararam o terreno para a legalizaçãodo ... more Este artigo mostra que os defensores dos direitos LGBT prepararam o terreno para a legalizaçãodo casamento homoafetivo no Brasil por meio de diversas influências culturais e do discursodos direitos humanos. Isso possibilitou a gradual criação de doutrina que sustentava serem asuniões homoafetivas pertinentes aos costumes do país, e que o direito ao casamento cabiadentro dos princípios constitucionais.
Marriage, Law, and Modernity: Global Histories, edited by Julia Moses (London: Bloomsbury), pp. 27-53, 2017
ABSTRACT
The arrival of DNA paternity testing in the 1980s was met with great enthusiasm in th... more ABSTRACT
The arrival of DNA paternity testing in the 1980s was met with great enthusiasm in the Brazilian courts. Yet, over the past two decades, Brazilian legal doctrine and jurisprudence have increasingly rejected DNA proof as the sine qua non for paternity cases. Instead, DNA paternity testing has generated mountains of litigation, as biological proof has been challenged by the argument that paternity is primarily “socio-affective”. Leading family law specialists describe this new conception of paternity as an outcome of the “revolutionary” provisions of the 1988 Constitution, which recognizes the “pluralism” of family forms in modern society and guarantees equal family rights for all children. Without denying the significance of the constitution’s dignitary framework, we show that new legal understandings of paternity represent less a paradigm shift than a continuation of longstanding historical tensions between biological and socio-cultural understandings of family and identity. In this article, we explore the development of biological and eventually genetic typing in Brazil, both of which had ties to the fields of criminology and race science. Our review suggests that techniques of biological identification, no matter how sophisticated or precise, were ineffective means for establishing identity, whether of individual personhood, as in the case of paternity, or national make-up. Instead, they became incorporated as supplemental methods into complex legal, social, and cultural decision-making around families.
Key words: Paternity; Forensic Genetics; Forensic Medicine
RESUMO
O surgimento dos testes de DNA para determinação de paternidade, nos anos 1980, foi recebida com grande entusiasmo nos tribunais brasileiros. No entanto, ao longo das últimas duas décadas, a doutrina jurídica e a jurisprudência brasileiras têm rejeitado cada vez mais a prova de DNA como condição sine qua non para os casos de paternidade. Testes de paternidade de DNA geraram inúmeros litígios que contestaram a prova biológica com o argumento de que a paternidade é principalmente “socioafetiva”. Os principais especialistas em direito de família descrevem essa nova concepção de paternidade como resultado das disposições “revolucionárias” da Constituição Federal de 1988, que reconhece a “pluralidade” das formas familiares na sociedade moderna e garante direitos iguais para todas as crianças. Sem negar a importância de novos princípios constitucionais, mostramos que os novos conceitos jurídicos da paternidade representam menos uma mudança de paradigma do que a continuação de antigas tensões históricas entre concepções biológicas e socioculturais da família e da identidade. Neste artigo, exploramos o desenvolvimento da tipologia biológica e, posteriormente, genética no Brasil, ambas ligadas aos campos da criminologia e da ciência racial. Nossa análise sugere que as técnicas de identificação biológica, por mais sofisticadas ou precisas que fossem, eram meios ineficazes para estabelecer a identidade, seja da personalidade individual, como no caso da paternidade, ou da composição nacional. Em vez disso, elas foram incorporadas como métodos suplementares para as decisões legais, sociais e culturais complexas em torno das famílias.
Palavras-Chave: Paternidade; Genética Forense; Medicina Legal
RESUMEN
La inclusión de las pruebas de ADN para la determinación de la paternidad en los años ochenta fue recibida con gran entusiasmo en los tribunales brasileños. A pesar de ello hoy en día, tras haber trascurrido dos décadas, la doctrina legal y la jurisprudencia brasileña han rechazado cada vez más las pruebas de ADN como pruebas determinantes de los casos de paternidad. Es más, las pruebas de ADN para la paternidad han generado muchísimos litigios, puesto que las pruebas biológicas han sido rebatidas por argumentos basados en que la paternidad es primordialmente una cuestión “socio-afectiva”. Los letrados especialistas en familia consideran esta nueva concepción de la paternidad como una revolución de la Constitución de 1988, la cual reconoce la existencia del pluralismo de familias y equipara los derechos de todos los niños. Sin menoscabar la interpretación del marco constitucional indicado, entendemos que las nuevas interpretaciones jurídicas de paternidad representan, cuanto menos, un cambio generado por las continuas tensiones entre las interpretaciones biológicas y socioculturales de los conceptos de familia y de identidad. En este artículo, analizamos el desarrollo de esta cuestión, desde el punto de vista biológico y genético en Brasil, los cuales se relacionan con los campos de criminología y los estudios raciales. Nuestro análisis sugiere que las técnicas de identificación biológicas, sin importar lo precisas y sofisticadas que sean, son ineficientes en el sentido de establecer una identidad, sea individual como persona, como en el caso de la paternidad, o sea colectiva, como en el seno de una nación. En su lugar, han sido incorporados como métodos complementarios, en el ámbito de toma de decisiones legal, social y cultural, sobre los estudios acerca de las familias.
Palabras-clave: Paternidad; Genética Forense; Medicina Legal
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Papers by Sueann Caulfield
A few nodal themes help to explain transformations in gender relations during each of the major periods of Brazil’s social and political history. Under the empire (1822–1889), honor is the entryway for analysis of gender and sexuality. Gendered standards of honor were critical tools used to mark class and racial boundaries, and to traverse them. Historians of the imperial period also stress the centrality of gender to the social, cultural, and economic networks built by members of various occupational, familial, and kinship groups. During the First Republic (1889–1930), the focus shifts to state vigilance and social control, together with debates over modernization of sexual and gender norms, particularly regarding urban space and prostitution. In the Vargas era (1930–1945), patriarchy and racialized sexuality formed the core of intellectual constructions of the nation’s history and identity, at the same time that homosexuality and women’s and worker’s rights generated intense debate. A new emphasis on domesticity emerged in the context of developmentalism in the 1950s, helping to spur a reaction in the form of the counterculture and sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. The dictatorship (1964–1985) went to great lengths to suppress challenges to gender and sexual norms as part of its broader strategy to demobilize society and repress oppositional political movements. These challenges reemerged in the 1970s, when feminists and sexual minorities gained much greater visibility within a new wave of social movements.
The 1988 constitution articulated these movements’ aspirations for social justice and equality through its foundational principal of human dignity. Significant legal changes followed over subsequent decades, including recognition of equal labor rights for domestic and sex workers, affirmative-action policies, and the legalization of same-sex marriage, in 2011. Despite notable setbacks, the momentum toward gender and sexual equality at the start of the 21st century was remarkable. This momentum was halted by the political coup that ousted the first woman president in 2016. The anti-feminist mood that accompanied the impeachment process underscored an overarching theme that runs through the historiography of gender and sexuality in Brazil: the centrality of gender to the major legal and political shifts that mark the nation’s history.
The arrival of DNA paternity testing in the 1980s was met with great enthusiasm in the Brazilian courts. Yet, over the past two decades, Brazilian legal doctrine and jurisprudence have increasingly rejected DNA proof as the sine qua non for paternity cases. Instead, DNA paternity testing has generated mountains of litigation, as biological proof has been challenged by the argument that paternity is primarily “socio-affective”. Leading family law specialists describe this new conception of paternity as an outcome of the “revolutionary” provisions of the 1988 Constitution, which recognizes the “pluralism” of family forms in modern society and guarantees equal family rights for all children. Without denying the significance of the constitution’s dignitary framework, we show that new legal understandings of paternity represent less a paradigm shift than a continuation of longstanding historical tensions between biological and socio-cultural understandings of family and identity. In this article, we explore the development of biological and eventually genetic typing in Brazil, both of which had ties to the fields of criminology and race science. Our review suggests that techniques of biological identification, no matter how sophisticated or precise, were ineffective means for establishing identity, whether of individual personhood, as in the case of paternity, or national make-up. Instead, they became incorporated as supplemental methods into complex legal, social, and cultural decision-making around families.
Key words: Paternity; Forensic Genetics; Forensic Medicine
RESUMO
O surgimento dos testes de DNA para determinação de paternidade, nos anos 1980, foi recebida com grande entusiasmo nos tribunais brasileiros. No entanto, ao longo das últimas duas décadas, a doutrina jurídica e a jurisprudência brasileiras têm rejeitado cada vez mais a prova de DNA como condição sine qua non para os casos de paternidade. Testes de paternidade de DNA geraram inúmeros litígios que contestaram a prova biológica com o argumento de que a paternidade é principalmente “socioafetiva”. Os principais especialistas em direito de família descrevem essa nova concepção de paternidade como resultado das disposições “revolucionárias” da Constituição Federal de 1988, que reconhece a “pluralidade” das formas familiares na sociedade moderna e garante direitos iguais para todas as crianças. Sem negar a importância de novos princípios constitucionais, mostramos que os novos conceitos jurídicos da paternidade representam menos uma mudança de paradigma do que a continuação de antigas tensões históricas entre concepções biológicas e socioculturais da família e da identidade. Neste artigo, exploramos o desenvolvimento da tipologia biológica e, posteriormente, genética no Brasil, ambas ligadas aos campos da criminologia e da ciência racial. Nossa análise sugere que as técnicas de identificação biológica, por mais sofisticadas ou precisas que fossem, eram meios ineficazes para estabelecer a identidade, seja da personalidade individual, como no caso da paternidade, ou da composição nacional. Em vez disso, elas foram incorporadas como métodos suplementares para as decisões legais, sociais e culturais complexas em torno das famílias.
Palavras-Chave: Paternidade; Genética Forense; Medicina Legal
RESUMEN
La inclusión de las pruebas de ADN para la determinación de la paternidad en los años ochenta fue recibida con gran entusiasmo en los tribunales brasileños. A pesar de ello hoy en día, tras haber trascurrido dos décadas, la doctrina legal y la jurisprudencia brasileña han rechazado cada vez más las pruebas de ADN como pruebas determinantes de los casos de paternidad. Es más, las pruebas de ADN para la paternidad han generado muchísimos litigios, puesto que las pruebas biológicas han sido rebatidas por argumentos basados en que la paternidad es primordialmente una cuestión “socio-afectiva”. Los letrados especialistas en familia consideran esta nueva concepción de la paternidad como una revolución de la Constitución de 1988, la cual reconoce la existencia del pluralismo de familias y equipara los derechos de todos los niños. Sin menoscabar la interpretación del marco constitucional indicado, entendemos que las nuevas interpretaciones jurídicas de paternidad representan, cuanto menos, un cambio generado por las continuas tensiones entre las interpretaciones biológicas y socioculturales de los conceptos de familia y de identidad. En este artículo, analizamos el desarrollo de esta cuestión, desde el punto de vista biológico y genético en Brasil, los cuales se relacionan con los campos de criminología y los estudios raciales. Nuestro análisis sugiere que las técnicas de identificación biológicas, sin importar lo precisas y sofisticadas que sean, son ineficientes en el sentido de establecer una identidad, sea individual como persona, como en el caso de la paternidad, o sea colectiva, como en el seno de una nación. En su lugar, han sido incorporados como métodos complementarios, en el ámbito de toma de decisiones legal, social y cultural, sobre los estudios acerca de las familias.
Palabras-clave: Paternidad; Genética Forense; Medicina Legal
A few nodal themes help to explain transformations in gender relations during each of the major periods of Brazil’s social and political history. Under the empire (1822–1889), honor is the entryway for analysis of gender and sexuality. Gendered standards of honor were critical tools used to mark class and racial boundaries, and to traverse them. Historians of the imperial period also stress the centrality of gender to the social, cultural, and economic networks built by members of various occupational, familial, and kinship groups. During the First Republic (1889–1930), the focus shifts to state vigilance and social control, together with debates over modernization of sexual and gender norms, particularly regarding urban space and prostitution. In the Vargas era (1930–1945), patriarchy and racialized sexuality formed the core of intellectual constructions of the nation’s history and identity, at the same time that homosexuality and women’s and worker’s rights generated intense debate. A new emphasis on domesticity emerged in the context of developmentalism in the 1950s, helping to spur a reaction in the form of the counterculture and sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. The dictatorship (1964–1985) went to great lengths to suppress challenges to gender and sexual norms as part of its broader strategy to demobilize society and repress oppositional political movements. These challenges reemerged in the 1970s, when feminists and sexual minorities gained much greater visibility within a new wave of social movements.
The 1988 constitution articulated these movements’ aspirations for social justice and equality through its foundational principal of human dignity. Significant legal changes followed over subsequent decades, including recognition of equal labor rights for domestic and sex workers, affirmative-action policies, and the legalization of same-sex marriage, in 2011. Despite notable setbacks, the momentum toward gender and sexual equality at the start of the 21st century was remarkable. This momentum was halted by the political coup that ousted the first woman president in 2016. The anti-feminist mood that accompanied the impeachment process underscored an overarching theme that runs through the historiography of gender and sexuality in Brazil: the centrality of gender to the major legal and political shifts that mark the nation’s history.
The arrival of DNA paternity testing in the 1980s was met with great enthusiasm in the Brazilian courts. Yet, over the past two decades, Brazilian legal doctrine and jurisprudence have increasingly rejected DNA proof as the sine qua non for paternity cases. Instead, DNA paternity testing has generated mountains of litigation, as biological proof has been challenged by the argument that paternity is primarily “socio-affective”. Leading family law specialists describe this new conception of paternity as an outcome of the “revolutionary” provisions of the 1988 Constitution, which recognizes the “pluralism” of family forms in modern society and guarantees equal family rights for all children. Without denying the significance of the constitution’s dignitary framework, we show that new legal understandings of paternity represent less a paradigm shift than a continuation of longstanding historical tensions between biological and socio-cultural understandings of family and identity. In this article, we explore the development of biological and eventually genetic typing in Brazil, both of which had ties to the fields of criminology and race science. Our review suggests that techniques of biological identification, no matter how sophisticated or precise, were ineffective means for establishing identity, whether of individual personhood, as in the case of paternity, or national make-up. Instead, they became incorporated as supplemental methods into complex legal, social, and cultural decision-making around families.
Key words: Paternity; Forensic Genetics; Forensic Medicine
RESUMO
O surgimento dos testes de DNA para determinação de paternidade, nos anos 1980, foi recebida com grande entusiasmo nos tribunais brasileiros. No entanto, ao longo das últimas duas décadas, a doutrina jurídica e a jurisprudência brasileiras têm rejeitado cada vez mais a prova de DNA como condição sine qua non para os casos de paternidade. Testes de paternidade de DNA geraram inúmeros litígios que contestaram a prova biológica com o argumento de que a paternidade é principalmente “socioafetiva”. Os principais especialistas em direito de família descrevem essa nova concepção de paternidade como resultado das disposições “revolucionárias” da Constituição Federal de 1988, que reconhece a “pluralidade” das formas familiares na sociedade moderna e garante direitos iguais para todas as crianças. Sem negar a importância de novos princípios constitucionais, mostramos que os novos conceitos jurídicos da paternidade representam menos uma mudança de paradigma do que a continuação de antigas tensões históricas entre concepções biológicas e socioculturais da família e da identidade. Neste artigo, exploramos o desenvolvimento da tipologia biológica e, posteriormente, genética no Brasil, ambas ligadas aos campos da criminologia e da ciência racial. Nossa análise sugere que as técnicas de identificação biológica, por mais sofisticadas ou precisas que fossem, eram meios ineficazes para estabelecer a identidade, seja da personalidade individual, como no caso da paternidade, ou da composição nacional. Em vez disso, elas foram incorporadas como métodos suplementares para as decisões legais, sociais e culturais complexas em torno das famílias.
Palavras-Chave: Paternidade; Genética Forense; Medicina Legal
RESUMEN
La inclusión de las pruebas de ADN para la determinación de la paternidad en los años ochenta fue recibida con gran entusiasmo en los tribunales brasileños. A pesar de ello hoy en día, tras haber trascurrido dos décadas, la doctrina legal y la jurisprudencia brasileña han rechazado cada vez más las pruebas de ADN como pruebas determinantes de los casos de paternidad. Es más, las pruebas de ADN para la paternidad han generado muchísimos litigios, puesto que las pruebas biológicas han sido rebatidas por argumentos basados en que la paternidad es primordialmente una cuestión “socio-afectiva”. Los letrados especialistas en familia consideran esta nueva concepción de la paternidad como una revolución de la Constitución de 1988, la cual reconoce la existencia del pluralismo de familias y equipara los derechos de todos los niños. Sin menoscabar la interpretación del marco constitucional indicado, entendemos que las nuevas interpretaciones jurídicas de paternidad representan, cuanto menos, un cambio generado por las continuas tensiones entre las interpretaciones biológicas y socioculturales de los conceptos de familia y de identidad. En este artículo, analizamos el desarrollo de esta cuestión, desde el punto de vista biológico y genético en Brasil, los cuales se relacionan con los campos de criminología y los estudios raciales. Nuestro análisis sugiere que las técnicas de identificación biológicas, sin importar lo precisas y sofisticadas que sean, son ineficientes en el sentido de establecer una identidad, sea individual como persona, como en el caso de la paternidad, o sea colectiva, como en el seno de una nación. En su lugar, han sido incorporados como métodos complementarios, en el ámbito de toma de decisiones legal, social y cultural, sobre los estudios acerca de las familias.
Palabras-clave: Paternidad; Genética Forense; Medicina Legal