Configurações: Revista de Ciências Sociais

The invention of healthy grief: repercussions for the experience of bereaved parents

Luis Henrique Fuck Michel — 2025-06-18

The article aims to empirically verify the repercussions of the concept of healthy grief, identifying the effects of the medicalisation of grief on the experience of parents who have lost their children. To this end, it employs a qualitative and microsocial approach, with data collected through 33 semi-structured interviews. The data were analysed using content analysis techniques and revealed that the medical logic of apprehending grief is not imposed in a homogeneous manner, with the bereaved resisting the conception of their suffering exclusively through this lens.

Ecologising urbanism: a timely dialogue between Bruno Latour and Jean Rémy

Domingos Vaz — 2025-06-18

The focus on ecological urbanism challenges existing conceptions of urban planning. In this article, we argue how an articulated framework between Bruno Latour’s political ecology and Jean Rémy’s concept of social transaction can help to conceive a more participatory planning. It is suggested that the two theoretical-analytical approaches, when combined, allow us to consider that society is composed of networks of associations that are fed and transformed by social transactions, providing an analytical entry point for understanding the role that cities play in the ecological and climate crisis.

Pachukanis and the Marxist critique of law: The General Theory of Law and Marxism a century later

Vitor Bartoletti Sartori — 2025-06-18

The Pachukanian project of a Marxist critique of Law depended on the expectation of suppression of legal relations (and commercial exchange as such), precisely considering the author’s positions as part of an innovative project, which, in 1924, understood that the suppression of the Law is close. As a result, the most important thing is that The General Theory of Law and Marxism proposes unfulfilled tasks, related to the thesis about the beneficial character of a Marxist critique of the general theory of Law and based on the revolutionary history of the 20th century. So, it is important to see the merits and aporias of the Marxist critique of Law inspired in Pachukanis’s book.

Nota Editorial: “Género e Desigualdades: Desafios Contemporâneos"

Dalila Cerejo — 2025-06-18

#EuVivo – (dis)Order around the concept of obstetric violence and its criminalisation in Portugal

Laura Brito — 2025-06-18

The criminalisation of obstetric violence is one of the demands of social movements for the humanisation of childbirth. The WHO acknowledges the existence of mistreatment in sexual and reproductive health care, recognising it as a global phenomenon. In Portugal, there was an attempt to advance the criminalisation of obstetric violence, which was contested by the Order of Physicians and, in turn, led to the creation of a social movement for the recognition of obstetric violence. This article aims to analyse the response of the Order of Physicians in comparison with existing literature and reports on the creation of the #EuVivo movement as a way to value social movements against obstetric violence.

Silences unveiled: men disclosing sexual victimisation during childhood and/or adolescence

Joana Teixeira Ferraz da Silva — 2025-06-18

This article examines the process of disclosure of sexual victimisation experienced by men during childhood and/or adolescence. Thirteen men living in Portugal, aged between 25 and 63, were interviewed, and the data was analysed using thematic content analysis. Findings indicate that sharing these experiences is often delayed for years due to factors such as self-blame, fear of re-victimisation, and fear of being discredited. Conversely, maturity, emotional support, and intimacy in interpersonal relationships can facilitate the disclosure. Misalignment with normative masculinity emerges as a key factor, reinforcing sociocultural barriers to reporting victimisation.

Laying out a script for students’ emotions through gender and emotion socialisation

Rebecca Judeh — 2025-06-18

Acknowledging the harmful impact gender stereotypes have on children’s social and emotional development and education (Fawcett Society, 2020; King et al., 2021) is essential to fostering a positive developmental process. Utilising a gender and emotion socialisation lens, this preliminary study investigates the expression of gender stereotypes and feeling rules in school interactions. Building from Judith Butler’s (2006) theory of gender performativity and Arlie Hochschild’s (1979, 2012) concepts of feeling rules and emotion work, an ethnographic study was conducted at a Portuguese primary school in the spring of 2023. The preliminary data observed feeling rules and gender stereotypes in classroom discourse, learning material, and student acts.

The persistence of gender inequalities in the distribution of unpaid work: an explanatory contribution

Miguel Chaves — 2025-06-18

This article analyses whether and to what extent gender inequalities persist in the distribution of unpaid domestic work among younger Europeans with higher education, segments of society where the ideals of gender equality are particularly present. Using data from the International Social Survey Programme, we show that this inequality persists to a significant degree, which leads us to draw up a set of hypotheses aimed at contributing to the effort to analyse this phenomenon. This framework of hypotheses draws attention to the importance of analytically considering the cultural survival, albeit in a mitigated, modified and diffuse form, of relevant aspects of the male breadwinner model.