Pizzolatto Konzen, Lucas

Lucas P. Konzen is a tenured, full-time associate professor in Sociology of Law at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), one of Brazil's leading educational and research institutions, and lives and works in Porto Alegre, the capital city of the State of Rio Grande do Sul. He is a permanent faculty member of UFRGS' Postgraduate Program in Law (PPGDir-UFRGS), accredited for masters thesis and PhD dissertation supervision. He is the principal investigator in research projects that are conducted by the Law and Society Research Group (GPDS), associated to UFRGS Laboratory for Empirical Research in Law (LaPED). He has published more than three dozen works, including scientific articles and book chapters, in Brazil and abroad, in the field of sociology of law, on topics such as the foundations of socio-legal research, critical legal geography, urban public spaces, and urban conflicts. His PhD dissertation, an empirical investigation in cities of Brazil, Mexico, and Spain deeply influenced by the perspective of legal geography, was published as a book, under the title Norms and Space: Understanding Public Space Regulation in the Tourist City. He joined UFRGS Law School faculty in 2014, returning to his alma mater, where he earned his bachelor of law degree in 2006. He holds a masters degree in law from the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), Brazil. While living overseas, he became very familiar with the theoretical ideas and research practices of the law and society movement. He was awarded a master's degree in sociology of Law by the Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law (IISL), in the Basque Country, Spain, supported by the European Union Program of High-Level Scholarships for Latin America. He also followed the Renato Treves International PhD Program in Law and Society, organized by a consortium of European universities, with the support of the Italian Ministry
of Education, Universities and Research (MIUR) and the Swedish Institute (SI), and was awarded in 2013 a PhD in law and society degree by the University of Milan (UNIMI), Italy, in co-tutorship with Lund University (LU), Sweden. He has been developing teaching, research, and outreach activities with emphasis on the fields of sociology of law, urban law, urban sociology, urban policy, constitutional law, and administrative law. He is responsible for the undergraduate courses in Sociology of Law and Law and Urban Space and the graduate courses in Empirical Research in Law and Critical Legal Geography. He is the coordinator of the research projects Legal Geographies of the City: Empirical Studies on the Regulation of the Public Domain (funded by CNPq) and The Impact of Sociology of Law in Brazil: Between the Academic Field and the Legal Field (funded by FAPERGS). He also is co-coordinator of the research project The Law of Favelas in the Context of Land Regularization Policies (CNPq/MCTI/FNDCT Call n 40/2022 Pro-Humanities). Also, he coordinates the public outreach initiatives Center for Innovative Legal and Social Practices (NPJSi) and Observatory of Land Regularization (ORFIS). He has held several positions at the Law School and the University administration. Currently he is the Director of UFRGS Law School Research and Professional Training Service (SPPP) (2021-...), member of the Unit Council (2017-...), and elected representative of the teaching staff at UFRGS Higher Council for Education and Research (CEPE) (2022-...). He was Director of Research at the Faculty of Law (COMPESQ) (2017-2020) and member of the UFRGS Chamber for Outreach Activities (CAMEXT) (2016-2020). He is a member of the Research Committee on the Sociology of Law (RCSL/ISA), the Law and Society Association (LSA), the Brazilian Network of Empirical Studies in Law (REED), the Brazilian Association of Researchers in the Sociology of Law (ABraSD) and the Brazilian Institute of Urban Law (IBDU).
Area(s) of expertise: sociology of law; law and urban space; critical legal geography, sociology of the legal field; sociolegal theory and methods