Martine Jean
I'm a fifth year student in the History and African-American Studies Departments. I completed my undergraduate degree at Brooklyn College in New York where I majored in History and Africana Studies. My dissertation, "Police and Citizen: Social Mobility and Social Control in the Brazilian Police Force, Rio de Janeiro, 1907-1960," examines Brazilian state formation through the persona of Rio's policemen as state agents and as common citizens while considering the possibility of the force as a vehicle for social mobility to the working class. This dissertation interrogates how social control was practiced in Rio de Janeiro from 1907 to 1960 through the recruitment of elements of the working class in this state apparatus. This analytical approach bridges the gap between scholarship on Rio's police and broader examinations of the lower classes' relationships to the state thus challenging earlier studies of race, gender, and class that failed to look at the participants in state projects of order. The research is mainly based on criminal records and archives of the police.
My dissertation committee consists of Stuart Schwartz, Gilbert Joseph, and Paul Gilroy. My academic and research interests include: Modern Latin America and the Caribbean, Post Emancipation Societies in the Americas, Modern Brazilian History, Post-Colonial State and Racial Formation, Urban History, and Law Enforcement Institutions.
