Fernanda Bittencourt Ribeiro

Fernanda Bittencourt Ribeiro holds a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology and is a professor and researcher at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. She is the editor-in-chief of Civitas: Revista de Ciências Sociais. She is a member of Anthera, an international research network on family and kinship.

The project

Title: Ideals of Parenting and Child Protection: A Review of Research in France

"The focus of this research project is current discourses on “good parenting” and their impact on institutions working in the field of child welfare. The research I propose, following stays in France, is part of a long-term ethnographic project and aims to draw contrasts between the ways in which discourses on parenting are appropriated and their effects in Brazil, and their expressions in the services where I conducted ethnographic research in France twenty years ago. Between 1998 and 2002, as part of my PhD in social anthropology at EHESS, which focused on intervention practices aimed at preventing child abuse, I conducted research in two child protection institutions: the Alésia 14 association, now known as Cap Alésia in Paris, and the Centre Autogéré de voile et d'animation locale (Caval) association located on the Île d’Yeu. Both, using very different methodologies, during a decade when the processes of children’s individualization were intensifying, supported intervention practices centered on parental bonds and aimed to provide means of supporting parenting.  the issue of drug use and trafficking. In 2024, I returned to the child welfare organizations where I had conducted fieldwork for my doctoral dissertation. The goal of this return was to identify the changes and continuities that characterize these organizations twenty years after the completion of my doctorate, taking into account current issues related to child protection. This new visit in 2026 aims to continue this research through fieldwork as well as academic exchange activities."

Hosting institution: Université Paris Cité

Selective Bibliography

• Rifiotis, Fernanda; Ribeiro, Fernanda Bittencourt; Villalta, Carla; Patrice Schuch. A parentalidade como forma da governança reprodutiva contemporânea. Horizontes Antropológicos, v. 31, p. e730201, 2025. 
• Ferreira, Jaqueline; Fleischer, Soraya; Ribeiro, Fernanda Bittencourt. Reflexões e práticas sobre a restituição de dados de pesquisa e de extensão na Antropologia. Áltera Revista de Antropologia, v. 2, p. 1-8, 2024. 
• Menegotto, Januária Monteiro; Ribeiro, Fernanda Bittencourt. Period poverty behind the numbers: gender, race, and class in the menstrual experiences of girls from an urban periphery in Brazil. Tapuya-Latin American Science Technology and Society, v. 7, p. 1-16, 2024. 
• Cardoso, Suliane ; Ribeiro, Fernanda Bittencourt. Do ponto de vista dos filhos: as mães nos relatos de jovens que viveram em acolhimento institucional até os dezoito anos. Revista Mundaú, v. 1, p. 212-232, 2024.
• Ribeiro, Fernanda Bittencourt. Minha mãe é usuária: crianças e adolescentes como atores do parentesco e da parentalidade em acolhimento institucional. Áltera: revista de antropologia, v. 15, p. e01501, 2023.