PIIRS’s Brazil LAB works with multiple units at Princeton and in Brazil and is organized around three fields of theory and practice: Environment, Political Economy, and the Arts & Humanities. The LAB strives for iterability and the cross-pollination of perspectives and methodologies in the production of actionable knowledge. Attuned to what Brazilian peoples and scholars can teach us, we have been engaging stakeholders in safeguarding Amazonia, promoting social justice, and harnessing the mobilizing role of the Brazilian arts.

Our research initiatives are structured around four hubs – Safeguarding Amazonia, Inequalities, Racialized Frontiers, and Decolonizing the Brazilian Arts – that operate in tandem and synergistically.

Each research hub has a unique agenda and engages in both scholarly and pedagogical activities that inform each other. Research and teaching are supported by academic exchanges with leading experts on campus and in Brazil. The hubs are multidisciplinary and seek to innovate methodologically by combining historical analysis, ethnography, big data, and visualization strategies. Collaboration with artists and media experts helps us disseminate research outcomes to academia and the broader public. Each hub is developing online platforms to showcase research that has the potential to change fields of knowledge and support alternative policy-making.