Project Outline

The Maricá Basic Income Team (UBIMar) examines local basic income policy diffusion in Brazil. One stream will focus on the political economy of how, starting in 2013, the small municipality of Maricá introduced a Renda Básica de Cidadania (RBC) paid out in a local digital currency (mumbuca) and covering about 25% of the population as part of its solidarity economy. A second stream focuses on how since the COVID-19 pandemic the RBC is undergoing major expansion, both in Maricá itself and in more than a dozen other municipalities in the State of Rio de Janeiro.

Contact the UBIMar team: fabienne.hansen@fribis.uni-freiburg.de

Jurgen De Wispelaere (Principal Investigator) is a political theorist turned public policy scholar specialising in the political economy of basic income. He is a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research (University of Bath) and a past Visiting Professor at the Götz Werner Chair of Economic Policy & Constitutional Economic Theory (University of Freiburg). He has published extensively on the politics of basic income and is the co-editor of four volumes and is also a founding editor (with Karl Widerquist) of the interdisciplinary journal, Basic Income Studies. He is currently working on several research projects: exploring the policy impact of the recent wave of basic income experiments, examining the role of basic income in emergency situations, and the diffusion of local basic income policies in Brazil. Jurgen is a big fan of death metal and commutes between Valdivia (Chile) and Europe (wherever they will have me).

Ariana Britto holds a Ph.D. and a Master’s degree in Economics from the Federal University of Fluminense and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from UNICAMP. Currently, she works as the Public Policy Manager at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) in the regional office for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). She is the coordinator of the Black Economists Network (REPP) and an associate researcher at the Center for Studies on Inequality and Development (CEDE).

Marc Doussard is Professor and Head of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, affiliate faculty at the Lemann Center for Brazilian Studies and a FRIBIS affiliate. In addition to basic income, his research focuses on low-wage work and urban policy. He is author of Degraded Work: The Struggle at the Bottom of the Labor Market (Minnesota, 2013) and co-author of Justice at Work: The Rise of Economic and Racial Justice Coalitions in Cities (Minnesota, 2022).

Fernando Freitas is a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at the Universidade Federal Fluminense. He holds a master’s degree in Public Policy and Development from the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. Fernando is a fellow at the Center for Studies on Inequality and Development (CEDE), and part of the Fiscal Council of the Brazilian Basic Income Network (RBRB). His research focuses on cash transfer evaluations.

Jéssica Maldonado is a PhD candidate in Economics at the Federal Fluminense University (UFF), with a master’s and bachelor’s degree in economics from the same university. Currently, she is the lead qualitative analysis researcher in the evaluation project of the Maricá Basic Citizenship Income, a partnership between the Federal Fluminense University and the Jain Family Institute. Jéssica is a member of UFF’s Center for Studies on Inequality and Development (CEDE).

Leticia Morales is Associate Professor in Law at the Universidad Austral de Chile and Director of the PhD Program in Law at UACh. She obtained her PhD in Law at Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona) and also holds an LLB in Law and a Master in Political Philosophy from the Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Argentina. Her research interests include the constitucional protection of social rights in democracies, the legal challenges of universal basic income, and the gender analysis of UBI.

Fábio Waltenberg is an Associate Professor of Economics at the Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF) in Niterói, Brazil, and a researcher at the Center for Inequality and Development Studies (CEDE) in the same university. He holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Economics from the Universidade de São Paulo (USP) and a PhD in Economics from the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium. Since 2019, he has coordinated the Brazilian team involved in evaluating the Citizens Basic Income program in Maricá. He is co-editor of the journal Basic Income Studies and associate editor of the journal Estudos Econômicos (USP, Brazil). His research focuses on economics of the welfare state, with an emphasis on education and cash transfer policies. In November 2023, he published a co-edited volume on Renda Básica e Economia Solidária: O Exemplo de Maricá.

Fabienne Hansen studied Ethnology and Political Science (BA) at Heidelberg University and Social and Cultural Anthropology (MA) at the University of Freiburg. At the moment, she is a research associate at the Freiburg Institute for Basic Income Studies (FRIBIS). Her research interests are the making of poliscapes, poverty reduction initiatives, and municipal welfare in relation to cash transfer programs in the Global South, with a regional focus on Latin America and the Caribbean. She is further interested in the impact of cash transfers on everyday interactions and lifeworlds. Currently, she is conducting an ethnographic study on the digital community curreny arariboia in Niterói, Brazil.

José dos Santos is a social worker, graduated Master from the State University of Paraíba and Doctor in Social Work from the Federal University of Pernambuco. He is currently the Latin American Hub Coordinator of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) and has professional and research experience in poverty, socioeconomic inequality and cash transfers in Brazil.

Leandro Ferreira is the President of the Brazilian Basic Income Network (RBRB). He is a PhD candidate in Economic Development at the University of Campinas (Unicamp). He holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy from the Federal University of ABC (UFABC) and a bachelor’s degree in Public Policy Management from the University of São Paulo (USP). He has professional experience in multiple governments and Parliaments in Brazil and is currently the General Manager of the Forum of Wealth Funds of Brazil.