REPORTS OF THE EXPERIENCE OF A SOCIOLOGIST INVESTIGATING CRIMES OF FEMINICIDE

Abstract

This article aims to presente some challenges experienced by a sociologist who investigates femicide crimes. I want to highlight the subjective experiences lived by researchers in the Social Sciences, which continually contribute to the necessary confrontations that form us as sociologists. This discussion crosses the findings of the research The crime of femicide and the perception of justice agents: a sociological analysis from the Jury Courts of João Pessoa, Paraíba (OLIVEIRA, 2019), arising from the interaction in the legal field of the jury courts, through the ethnography of jury sessions and conducting interviews with legal professionals and lay judges. Along the way, I had to deal with the influences that (dis)favored the concession of interviews; the emotional affectations of the woman-researcher, in the face of crimes committed against other women and repeated institutional violence; and the professional affectations of the sociologist-jurist, who is surprised by the manipulations of the law carried out by the professionals who debated the crimes. These experiences are demonstrated by the description of access to the field and interlocutors and, especially, by the analysis of a feminicide that supposedly occurred to hide sexual abuse against the victim's daughter (stepdaughter of the defendant). The research reports confirm how I was fully engaged as a sociologist and, therefore, that the affectations experienced in the field were important for the construction of ethnographic descriptions, for reflection on the various forms of violence exercised against women in femicide practices, as well as for the development of my professional skills.