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Scholars

Vitor Martins Dias

Butler University

Based in

United States
North America

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology & Criminology at Butler University. I am a socio-legal scholar exploring how legal, political, and social actors influence global and local institutions and organizations, producing social change or reproducing structural inequalities. Globally, I study how lawyers shape trade regimes between countries, which has contributed to today’s climate crisis. Locally, I analyze the mobilization against and governance of climate change in Brazil’s Amazon, where I was born and raised. My work has appeared in World Development, Sociology of Development, Law & Social Inquiry, University of Illinois Law Review, University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, and Cambridge University Press.

After moving from Brazil to the U.S., I earned my LL.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Indiana University Bloomington. In 2022-2023, I was a Visiting Fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame. At IU-Bloomington, I remain affiliated with the Center for the Analysis of Social-Ecological Landscapes and the Maurer School of Law’s Stewart Center on the Global Legal Profession. I am currently co-editing a special issue of the Law & Society Review on Law in a Changing Climate. When I am not teaching, I am mostly working on my book project.

Country(ies) of Specialty

United States Brazil

Focus areas of expertise

Climate policy and politics Climate law and litigation Climate Justice Social movements

How to Connect

Publications

Articles

Dias, Vitor M. “Climate Change, Organizational Culture, and Symbolic Embeddedness in the Brazilian Amazon.” Sociology of Development, vol. 9, no. 4, 2023, pp. 366–87, https://doi.org/10.1525/sod.2023.9.4.366.

Delaroche, Martin, Vitor M. Dias, and Paulo Eduardo dos Santos Massoca. “The Intertemporal Governance Challenges of Brazil’s Amazon: Managing Soybean Expansion, Deforestation Rates, and Urban Floods.” Sustainability Science, vol. 18, no. 1, 2023, pp. 43–58, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-022-01149-4.

Dias, Vitor M, Pedro Paulo de Araújo Soares, Eduardo S. Brondizio, and Sandra Helena Souza Cruz. “Grassroots Mobilization in Brazil’s Urban Amazon: Global Investments, Persistent Floods, and Local Resistance Across Political and Legal Arenas.” World Development, vol. 146, 2021, p. 105572, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105572.