Da mobilização discursiva às estratégias de atuação de organizações não governamentais: reflexões sobre o imaginário político dos direitos humanos no Brasil

Abstract

Human rights play a fundamental role in contemporary dynamics, being mobilized by a wide range of actors and encompassing a broad spectrum of demands. Recently, various studies have explored new theoretical and methodological perspectives to understand how human rights are utilized and redefined in the current social context. Within the field of the sociology of human rights, these rights have been analyzed as a dynamic and continuously evolving object. This research adopts the concept of the Political Imaginary as a theoretical and methodological framework to capture the complexities of human rights in the contemporary world. Recognizing NGOs as central actors in constructing and mobilizing this imaginary, the study focuses on the work of four organizations operating in Brazil: Amnesty International, Conectas Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, and Justiça Global. The central objective of this research is to understand how the political imaginary of contemporary human rights is empirically mobilized by the selected organizations. It seeks to map the main strategies adopted by these NGOs in their practices, to analyze their achievements and limitations, and to identify the key themes and human rights objects they mobilize, while examining how they construct their agendas of action in Brazil. Finally, the research analyzes how human rights are mobilized in the work of these organizations and how they influence public narratives about human rights in Brazil. The empirical corpus of this study comprises 216 documents produced by the four NGOs, complemented by three interviews with key informants from these organizations. The temporal scope spans from 2000 to 2018, a period characterized by the expansion of human rights NGOs in Brazil and the institutional strengthening of the political imaginary of human rights. This approach enables an in-depth exploration of how the political imaginary of human rights is mobilized in Brazil and highlights the challenges faced in this context.