An ethnography of the legal services provided in São Paulo's Citizenship Integration Centers allowed me to analyze the informal and formal rituals of conflict resolution practiced by the São Paulo State Police, the Public Prosecutor's Office and the Judiciary in the context of a service integration program. The analysis afforded a political sociology of the state management of conflicts, which emerged as a fragmented and plural field in which logics of conflict resolution and agencies dispute the meaning of extending rights and justice to Brazil's low income population. The plurality of logics aimed at conflict resolution allow, on one hand, a freedom of choice for the public involved in defense of their interests; on the other hand, it reproduces inequalities between public users and legal agents, undermining the effectiveness of state law. Rituals from the legal field also contribute to hierarchizing circumscribed bodies and vulnerable bodies.
Law Reform; Informal Law; Citizenship Integration Centers; State Management of Conflicts; Legal Pluralism