Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
03
INDEXADORES
EBSCOHOST
PROQUEST
SCIELO
SEER/IBICT
DIRETÓRIOS
DOAJ
CLASE
SUMÁRIOS.ORG
CATÁLOGOS
LATINDEX
PORTAL DE PERIÓDICOS CAPES
volume 7 número 3
setembro –dezembro de 2017
quadrimestral
issn 2238-3875
l) APRESENTAÇÃO
É com grande satisfação que este número de Sociologia & Antropologia traz ao
zil)
público leitor, além dos artigos de amplo espectro, um conjunto de textos que
expressa a relevância do pensamento de Louis Dumont (1911-1998) nas ciências
sociais atuais. “The presence of Louis Dumont: an interview with Joel Robbins”,
por Luiz Fernando Dias Duarte, explora, em rico diálogo, o desdobramento do
conceito de valor no conceito de relacionismo proposto por Robbins como con-
trapartida ao dualismo holismo versus individualismo característico do pensa-
mento de Dumont. A discussão dessas noções conduz ao enfoque da antropo-
logia do cristianismo elaborada por Robbins com base em suas pesquisas com
os Urapmin, na Papua-Nova Guiné. Segue-se o artigo “Louis Dumont, a compa-
ração das sociedades e o diálogo cultural”, em que Serge Tcherkézoff conduz
firme argumentação em prol da defesa do método holístico geral proposto por
Dumont, apresentando, ao final do percurso, situações etnográficas relativas à
sociedade de Samoa, na Polinésia, que ilustram exemplarmente os pontos do
argumento defendido. Naomi Haynes, em “Contemporary Africa through the
theory of Louis Dumont”, toma como foco etnográfico o cristianismo pentecos-
tal tal como praticado no Cinturão do Cobre da Zâmbia. Com a análise do valor
abrangente do “avanço” (moving), que abriga os subvalores do carisma e da
l) prosperidade, Haynes demonstra como a relação hierárquica entre esses dois
subvalores naquele contexto específico permite melhor compreensão do mun-
do social instaurado pela adesão ao pentecostalismo. “O valor dos valores: Lou-
is Dumont na antropologia contemporânea”, de Luiz Fernando Dias Duarte,
encerra o conjunto com uma revisão dos principais focos de influência do pen-
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 637 – 638, dezembro, 2017
INTRODUCTION
It is with great satisfaction that this issue of Sociologia & Antropologia, as well as
containing articles on a broad spectrum of topics, presents the reader with a set
of texts highlighting the importance of the thought of Louis Dumont (1911-1998)
in the contemporary social sciences. In a rich conversation, “The presence of
Louis Dumont: an interview with Joel Robbins,” conducted by Luiz Fernando
Dias Duarte, explores the impact of Dumont’s conception of value on the con-
cept of relationism proposed by Robbins as a counterpart to the holism versus
individualism dualism central to Dumont’s thought. Their discussion of these
notions leads to an appraisal of the Anthropology of Christianity elaborated by
Robbins, based on his research in Papua New Guinea with the Urapmin people.
The interview is followed by Serge Tcherkézoff’s article “Louis Dumont, the
comparison of societies and the cultural dialogue,” where he argues robustly in
defence of the general holistic method proposed by Dumont, turning finally to
ethnographic situations pertaining to the society of Samoa, Polynesia, in order
to illustrate points made in the earlier argument. In “Contemporary Africa
through the theory of Louis Dumont,” Naomi Haynes focuses ethnographically
on the Pentecostal Christianity practiced in the Copperbelt of Zambia. Analysing
the pervasive value of ‘moving,’ which encompasses the subvalues of charisma
and prosperity, Haynes demonstrates how, in this specific context, the hierarchi-
cal relationship between these two subvalues enables a better comprehension
of the social world inaugurated by the conversion to Pentecostalism. “The value
of values: Louis Dumont in contemporary anthropology,” by Luiz Fernando Dias
Duarte, concludes this series of texts with a review of the main focal points of
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 639 – 640, december, 2017
volume 7 número 3
setembro-dezembro 2017
quadrimestral
issn 2238-3875
volume 7 number 3
september-december 2017
triannual
issn 2238-3875
648
Louis Dumont, for his part, is an author whose ideas have been strongly
influential in Brazilian anthropology, both on the ethnological side in studies of
tribal societies, thanks to his fundamental contributions to the study of kinship,
and on the ‘sociological’ side of the analyses of Brazilian society and culture,
thanks to his challenging theories about hierarchical opposition and the ideol-
ogy of individualism. The very intensity of the controversies provoked by his
ideas – for sundry reasons – in India, Europe and Brazil has prompted Sociologia
& Antropologia to take a fresh look at them through the proficient lenses of Joel
Robbins. 1
Two scholars close to Dumont’s thought were invited to publish in this
issue, alongside the interview with Robbins: Serge Tcherkézoff and Naomi
Haynes; representing different generations of anthropologists. Tcherkézoff was
a direct disciple of Dumont and addresses in his article the theme of the ho-
listic method proposed by the master, on the basis of his Polynesian ethno-
graphic experience. Haynes has addressed the relationship between social
structure and values in the Zambian Copperbelt, as part of her involvement
with the anthropology of Christianity. I wrote an article about Dumont’s out-
reach among Brazilian anthropologists since the 1970s which fills out this four-
fold set conceived both as a homage to a much revered predecessor and a chart
to a renewed understanding of a vivid and fertile anthropological program.
Luiz Fernando Dias Duarte. Louis Dumont is already central in your first pub-
lished article (1994). When and how, along your formative years, did Dumont’s
ideas become relevant for you?
Joel Robbins. I attended graduate school at the University of Virginia beginning
in the 1980s. Virginia at that time had a very singular department. The focus
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 647 – 679, december, 2017
was wholly on what at that time was called ‘symbolic anthropology.’ I heard
recently that the department, still quite young in the 1980s as a full scale, PhD
granting entity, had been built up at the insistence of the University’s then
nationally leading English Department (which counted Richard Rorty as one of
its faculty members). Whether accurate or not, this story has the ring of pos-
sible truth, not only because the English Department really was that strong at
the University and because everyone in the anthropology department studied
issues of meaning in human life and did so in ways that, at that time, brought
anthropology and literary theory quite close together. Victor Turner had been
in the Department (though he had passed away the year before I arrived as a
student). Almost all of the other faculty had roots in British, French, and Amer-
ican symbolic approaches. A number of professors had been students of David
Schneider or of his students. Several others had spent time in Paris with Lévi-
Strauss, and his work more than that of anyone else dominated the curriculum.
As one would expect given this background, Dumont was also a major
figure. At least four people taught his work, and three of them, Fred Damon,
an interview with joel robbins | luiz fernando dias duarte
649
650
provided a crucial part of its background. During this time, I began to understand
the unique qualities of Dumont’s approach to structural theory through the lens
of values – I started to grasp how fully the emphasis on values changed things
in relation to Lévi-Straussian structuralism without giving up the strengths of
the structural approach. For one thing, it added a layer of complexity to accounts
of structure that was necessary to prevent the study of this subject from drifting
into mere formalist gamesmanship, which in the hands of some structuralists
and of some of the early post-structuralists just beginning to appear at that time
seemed to be a real threat. And for another (and related) thing, it seemed to
bring us closer to the actual human concerns that actors brought to bear on their
encounters with structures, even as they developed these concerns in their
prior structural encounters. I had been struck since I first learned about anthro-
pology as a young student by the strong mix of formal and what we might call
material or lived kinds of materials that figure in the best anthropological anal-
yses. I had signed up for the discipline in the hope that this mix might mean
anthropology would be the right place to settle then very current problems about
how people lived lives in relation to structures they did not in any simple or
individualistic sense create. After choosing to become an anthropologist, I have
learned over time that the temptation to overstate or overrate the formal is al-
ways there in the discipline, as is the temptation to understate or underrate it
in a kind of bland humanism (as in the contemporary vogue for rather simplis-
tic notions of ‘lived experience’ and soi-disant ‘existential’ storytelling demon-
strate). On my reading in graduate school, and still today, Dumont gets this mix
just right most of the time, and he accomplishes this by theorizing the role of
material (contentful) values in shaping even the most abstract structures in
ways that make them motivating for those who live with them (though he does
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 647 – 679, december, 2017
not always say this is what he is doing). I might be able to say more on this as
we go on, but for now this is perhaps enough on how I first encountered Dumont
and why that encounter meant so much to me at the time.
651
confidence. But by the mid-1980s, anyone who still cared about structuralism
knew it was going to have to develop some kind of approach to history, and
more than this, it was going to have to recuperate action or practice as a key
feature of social life. I already mentioned that I arrived at graduate school
wanting somehow to hold on to the power of structures to shape human life
without giving up on human actors entirely, as a full-on anti-humanism would
suggest. In this regard, I think I was just swimming with the current. For some
people, Bourdieu’s Outline of a theory of practice, then just recently translated,
was the key text for accomplishing something like the creation of a living struc-
turalism. But I was always put off by the market logic that so thoroughly per-
vades Bourdieu’s theorizing, and I also worried that habitus ended up being
little more than a mechanism of mechanical structural reproduction with a
human face painted on it (and I have been working on a value theoretical cri-
tique of this notion lately, though it’s probably not far enough along to ade-
quately summarize here). For all the complexity of Bourdieu’s actual ethno-
graphic analyses, I had trouble finding a real theorization of action as more
than reproductive. For me, then, it was Sahlins’s Islands of History that really
seemed to be a way forward when it came out in my second year of graduate
school. I read it very carefully, and I think I wrote one of my doctoral exams on
it. I was sold on its model of change – one that recognized the massively struc-
tured aspects of human life, saw transformation as escaping any one person’s
intentions, but still had a place for social action as a cause of how the world
moves along. [As a side note, I might also observe that a few years ago I had a
chance to teach Wagner’s The invention of culture, Bruce Kapferer’s Legends of
people, myths of state (a book that was also quite important for expanding my
sense of the kinds of work Dumont’s theories allowed one to carry out), and
Sahlins’s Islands of History back to back in two related graduate seminars. I was
struck by how much they shared by way of a basic problematic – one that tries
to hold together structure, practice, and novelty – even as their tones of voice
so clearly differ. Again, these concerns were clearly in the air then.]
To complete my doctoral studies, I carried out fieldwork with a very
remote group of people in Papua New Guinea – the Urapmin. Despite never
being directly missionized by westerners, the Urapmin converted themselves
to a globally recognizable form of charismatic (Pentecostal) Christianity in the
late 1970s, 13 years before I began my field research. I had gone to Urapmin to
study the way a traditional religious emphasis on secrecy shaped people’s eve-
ryday understanding of knowledge (the Urapmin are from the same set of groups
as the Baktaman, about whom Fredrick Barth wrote his famous book on the
“epistemology of secrecy” entitled Ritual and knowledge among the Baktaman). I
had no idea the Urapmin would be Christian. But by the time I arrived, living
as Christians was clearly the core collective Urapmin project and one that
seemed to be pretty much everyone’s key personal project as well. The tradi-
the presence of louis dumont
652
tional religion was gone, as were the elaborate taboos on food and gender con-
tact that older ethnographies of the region had demonstrated once thoroughly
structured people’s lives. The Urapmin themselves said that in 1977 “God came
and got us and everything changed.” Their way of life made it very hard to argue
with this claim. I ended up studying Urapmin as Christians – a task for which,
while I was in the field, I felt I had no model – not having ever read an ethnog-
raphy of the religious life of a Christian group of people before. But when I set
out to write up the results of my fieldwork, I also found I had to figure out what
kind of question the things I had learned from the Urapmin might be an answer
to. I played with some questions that were in the air at the time – how do “pe-
ripheral groups” modernize and do they produce “vernacular modernities” when
they do? Or, what does it mean to globalize at the very edges of world-system?
But in the end, I realized the question I was really meant to answer was about
how one can hang on to strong theories of structure and culture and still ac-
count for radical structural/cultural change.
It was in the light of this question that I went back to Sahlins and Du-
mont. As Sahlins himself once pointed out to me when I wrote a paper address-
ing him as a theorist of cultural change, he always saw himself as studying
history, not change (Robbins, 2016). But in his theorization of the relationship
between structure and action, I saw an opening to develop a structural theory
of radical cultural change. Since even before going to the field I was sold on the
Dumontian idea that one cannot study structures without studying the ways
they are shaped and coordinated by values, there was no way Dumont’s work
was not going to be central to my own theoretical project. But as my interests
moved in the direction of studying change without abandoning structure – or
as, we might say, they moved beyond a concern with action to a concern with
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 647 – 679, december, 2017
653
654
model Dumont (1986) laid out in relation to reversals in his piece “The Anthro-
pological Community and Ideology” and elsewhere – and of course this is tied
to Dumont’s related dialectical handling of the possible (but not always opera-
tive) encompassment of the contrary as the distinctive aspect of hierarchical
oppositions. For Dumont, these ideas in turn have roots in Evans-Pritchard’s
model of the processual operation of segmentary opposition, and perhaps in
structural linguistic models of markedness, both of which Wagner also knows
well. Beyond this, it is quite clear that Wagner’s ability to work fluently and
inspiringly with a macro-opposition between us and them, or even something
like the West versus the rest, in The invention of culture owes a huge debt to
Dumont’s formulation of India : the West :: holism : individualism (Robbins,
2002). More on this below.
L.F.D.D. Dumont was a very discrete, almost secretive person. Had it not been
for the introduction letter Roberto DaMatta provided me in 1986, I think it would
have been very difficult to meet him personally – but then I was not an eth-
nologist! Did you have the occasion to have any direct academic contact with
him or receive any reaction to your work?
J.R. I never met Dumont myself. He came to Virginia while I was a student, but
it was at a time I was not living there. I have always been quite jealous that my
close friend Bruce Koplin was able to take him out for the US ritual of donuts
and coffee! I did send him the 1994 article, which you kindly mention in the
introduction, when it was published. He wrote back a very warm note, saying
that he appreciated the argument and had shared it with colleagues in Paris.
This was, of course, great encouragement for me to continue my engagement
with his work, as I knew that it was quite possible that he could have found my
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 647 – 679, december, 2017
L.F.D.D. In the acknowledgments of your first book you positively mention dis-
cussions with some authors who rank as famous Dumontians, such as André
Iteanu, Daniel de Coppet and Ivan Strenski. You have participated in several
international public initiatives to discuss Dumont’s ideas, such as “Dumont
and the Global Order” (Helsinki, 2008), “Dumont in the Pacific” (Santa Cruz CA,
2009) and the “Dumont Centennial” (Paris, 2011). Now, for the organization of
this volume of Sociologia e Antropologia, you have suggested a list of new pos-
sible collaborators (Knut Rio, Annelin Eriksen and Naomi Haynes) for me to add
an interview with joel robbins | luiz fernando dias duarte
655
to a series of names that did already included those of Iteanu, de Coppet, St-
renski and Serge Tcherkézoff. What is your experience of this international
circle of researchers who draw on Dumont’s intellectual heritage?
J.R. I have already discussed de Coppet, who I know did much to keep Dumont’s
group together after Dumont himself died. I first met Ivan Strenski when I in-
vited him to speak at UC San Diego, since he taught at the nearby UC Riverside.
When we met, I learned that he had been part of an intense summer seminar
with the same people who taught me at Virginia a few years before I began
graduate studies, and it suddenly made good sense why I found his work so
compatible with my own (along with his work on Dumont, I have found some
of his other work, especially one of his books on Hubert and Mauss’s essay on
sacrifice, extremely useful – Strenski, 2002). Another figure senior to myself
who has been very important to my thinking and to helping develop some of
the kinds of initiatives you mention above has been Jukka Siikala, a longtime
professor of Anthropology at the University of Helsinki and someone who has
engaged with Dumont’s work very deeply. His influence in Finland was such
that when I first visited there, in 2002, I felt like I had entered an alternate
universe where Dumont was at the very center of anthropology, and where one
could immediately fall into serious conversation about the anthropology of
values without difficulty. The only other places where I have had that kind of
experience have been visiting Bergan and your own institution! Since that first
trip, I have gone back to Finland many times. One fruit of that engagement was
the “Dumont and the Global Order” symposium, which is now published (Rob-
bins & Siikala, 2014).
What is most exciting, however, is the recent upsurge of interest in values
in anthropology, and this includes renewed attention to Dumontian approach-
es and questions of hierarchy. Naomi Haynes is part of this, and has recently
co-edited an important special issue of Social Analysis on hierarchy (Haynes &
Hickel, 2017). Annelin Eriksen and Knut Rio, both students of Bruce Kapferer,
are also part of this development, and they, along with Kapferer, have been key
interlocutors for me over the last 10 years or so. Rio, along with his colleague
at Bergen, Olaf Smedal, has also edited an important collection on hierarchy
that gathers a lot of the best work in a Dumontian vein being produced right
now on this topic (Rio & Smedal, 2009). At Cambridge, Anastasia Piliavsky is a
very creative South Asianist who has done important work on rethinking the
importance of Dumont, and of hierarchy more generally, for the study of con-
temporary Indian politics (see, for example, Piliavsky, 2014). She recently initi-
ated a project with myself and Vita Peacock (another highly original young
scholar who engages deeply with Dumont’s work – Peacock, 2015) that led to a
workshop at Cambridge on “hierarchy, equality, and responsibility,” which we
are currently working on publishing as an edited book. Andre Iteanu’s student,
Ismaël Moya, now a member of CNRS, is another impressive young thinker in
the presence of louis dumont
656
set a model for my own vision – just one among several being developed by a
number of scholars in the late 1990s – of what an anthropology of Christianity
could be like as a theoretically generative comparative ethnographic project.
Though I did not realize how much sense it made at the time, in retrospect it
should perhaps be no surprise that Strenski gave the nascent anthropology of
Christianity project a huge boost when he invited a special issue on the theme
for Religion, a journal he edited, before there was much indication that this
project would, in fact, have any influence (and before he had written his own
book on Dumont) (Robbins, 2003).
It should also not come as any surprise that the extent to which Chris-
tianity might foster individualism, and if so, what kinds of individualism it
might promote, have been topics of enduring debate in the anthropology of
Christianity (see Bialecki & Daswani, 2015 for a review). For my own part, I have
continued to want to insist that we can only understand Christian individual-
ism if we understand it in Dumontian terms precisely as a value, rather than
as a neutral social fact or a mere concept. If we fail to understand it in these
an interview with joel robbins | luiz fernando dias duarte
657
658
total collapse in the face of neoliberal individualism. This is just one example
of the way in which the tools Dumont provides could do a lot to help us get to
grips with contemporary developments.
tion of him. First, it is very clear that Dumont does argue that all social forma-
tions everywhere must have at least some sense of the value of holism, other-
wise they could not sustain societies, and without societies, human beings
cannot exist or reproduce. This is the basis of all social science, and it is a point
that Dumont registers with unusual firmness and clarity (a good place to find
this argument laid out with clarity and vigor is the Introduction to Dumont’s
[1994] book German Ideology). It is worth noting, however, that this point is sup-
plemented by another fundamental claim that Dumont makes in section 118
of Homo Hierarchicus, when he states (here quoting from footnote 118D) that “all
societies contain the same ‘elements,’ ‘features’ or ‘factors,’ it being understood
that these ‘elements’” will be elaborated and recognized differently in each
case on the basis of how highly they are valorized, such that “in any society
there will always be found that which corresponds in a residual way […] to
what another society differentiates, articulates and valorizes…” (Dumont, 1980:
420, see also 232-233 for the context of this remark and an important diagram).
In the diagram Dumont presents on page 233 of Homo Hierarchicus, ‘society,’
an interview with joel robbins | luiz fernando dias duarte
659
660
sian studies. That is, I was trying to develop a Dumontian reading of what would
come to be understood as something like ‘dividuality’ or ‘relational personhood.’
Just as Dumont’s influence does not at the moment really rival that of these
two thinkers (though, of course, it has had this kind of stature in the past), and
certainly not in Melanesian studies, so too ‘relationalism’ as an aspect of a
theoretical notion of value is not nearly as widely adopted by anthropologists
as dividualism or relational personhood. Indeed, it is sometimes taken to be a
theoretical notion fundamentally hostile to ideas of dividuality and relational
personhood. I hope that the remarks I have just made make clear that this was
not my intention in developing my own use of the term. It would be a task for
another occasion, however, to work out in what if any ways a full reckoning
with relationalism as a value would necessitate a rethinking of notions of di-
viduality and relational personhood that have in some quarters become some-
what rigid and orthodox, even as they remain quite generative for anthropo-
logical thought more generally.
J.R. This goes back to my answer to an earlier question, about how many people
during the period when I was in graduate school (just after Ortner’s article was
published) wanted to find a way of synthesizing structural approaches with
some notion of practice or action. I have already noted that my own deepest
anthropological instincts are in keeping with this problematic, which was trans-
formed somewhat for me by the way my fieldwork among the Urapmin forced
me to reckon not only with practice in general, but also with those kinds of
practice that generate radical cultural change. However, I have also always felt
slightly out of step with my own generation by virtue of my conviction that
questions of practice and of change only become interesting if one also recog-
nizes the tremendous force of structure in human life. In this sense, I am not
part of many of my peers’ poststructural turn to more nominalist, or imma-
nentist, approaches that see social formations as radically remade at every
moment and as constantly changing. Sometimes things do change, but not
always, and I think much practice, indeed most of it, is profoundly structur-
ally informed. Sometimes, perhaps most of the time, but not always, this struc-
an interview with joel robbins | luiz fernando dias duarte
661
tural informedness is unconscious. But equally crucial is the fact that we social
beings tend to encourage one another to remain within structures, and some-
times people are aware of being ‘encouraged’ (or ‘sanctioned’) in this respect.
I won’t argue this out here, but suffice it to say that this view is informed by
Durkheim, Garfinkle and even Foucault, as well as by Levi-Strauss, Dumont,
and Sahlins.
This view carries through in my approach to morality, which you men-
tion (for this point, see Robbins, 2007). I think I rather stand out among other
anthropologists of ethics for insisting that ethical action is sometimes a mat-
ter of conscious decisions but that it can also sometimes be reproductive and
not very conscious. I go on to use Dumont’s work (and Weber’s – more on this
below) to make an argument about when one or the other kind of ethics is
likely to be to the fore. In a different way, Jarrett Zigon (with whom I have had
a productive debate – see Zigon, 2009a, 2009b, Robbins, 2009) and now Webb
Keane (2015) similarly stress both the ‘unconscious’ or routine and the ‘con-
scious’ or ‘eventful’ qualities of ethical action, but for many others only one
or other kind of action is really constitutive of the ethical domain (see Laidlaw,
2014 for a relevant and very careful reading and rethinking of this entire field,
including as it bears on this theme). So, to round off this point, I have tried to
hold together structure (including its unconscious dimensions) and practice
and change (including the ways in which they sometimes involve conscious
deliberation) in my work on ethics as well as on other topics.
The following quotation from Dumont (1980: 20) is highly relevant to the
overarching issues of structure and practice you raise in the question above,
but it is also central to the ones you raise in the following question. I will quote
it here, but save further elaboration of the point that it makes until the next
answer:
“I wanted only to mark the point after which Tocqueville fails to guide us, and the me-
rit of the sociologist who succeeds here. Talcott Parsons does so because he combines
the intellectualism of Durkheim (recognizing that action is dominated by representa-
tions or ideas) and the pragmatism of Max Weber (confronting, beyond the problem
of the representation of the world, that of action in the world as represented).”
L.F.D.D. I have the impression that the close relationship between Dumont’s
analytical scheme and the thought of Max Weber, at least with regards to his
conception of ‘values,’ was not evident for most of his readers until you pro-
posed it so vividly and convincingly (Robbins, 2004: 12; 348). In a sentence like
“[…] made up not only of concepts or categories, but also of values that structure
the relations between them” (Robbins, 2011b: 415 – my emphasis), you are
clearly opposing Durkheim to Weber. Although the program of the French So-
ciological School centered explicitly on representations and classifications, I
have the impression that in a late work like The elementary forms of religious life,
the presence of louis dumont
662
wonder that they come to value these things – to find them desirable (that is,
to find them not only something they desire, but something they feel it is
good to desire – which was pretty much Clyde Kluckhohn’s definition of val-
ues and can still serve usefully today in some theoretical contexts) (Kluckhohn
et. al., 1962 [1951]: 395). Or for the Urapmin, as for most other Papua New
Guineans, it is a simple fact of life that many crucial social celebrations in-
volve the slaughter of pigs. It is little wonder, then, that they find pigs to be
self-evidently good, desirable things (even as Christian ritual events in plac-
es like Urapmin accord even higher value to the successful moral management
of individual hearts).
Going back to Durkheim for a moment, a few things are worth noting
about his discussion of value. First, for someone who is so often seen as es-
sentially Kantian in his definition of the moral realm in terms of duty and
obligation, his argument about desire is a major departure from Kant. Second,
Durkheim here is attending to issues of subjective motivation we think of as
more characteristically Weberian. You are right to say that I formerly opposed
an interview with joel robbins | luiz fernando dias duarte
663
these two thinkers in my work early work on ethics, but I am not now inclined
to do so, or at least not always to do so, in my thinking about values (for a
fuller discussion of Durkheim in these terms, see Robbins, 2015b).
I might take this opportunity to point toward one direction in which my
own thinking about values is going at the moment. Some time ago now, I deter-
mined that it would be useful to go, as it were, ‘behind’ or before Dumont to
begin to look at where the notions of values that he inherits and that are in play
in some quarters of philosophy today have come from. This has led me to spend
a lot of time on German thought from the second half of the nineteenth cen-
tury, and in particular on the neo-Kantian debates about values that were so
central to Weber’s thinking, and that I now think also must have had some role
to play in Durkheim’s thought as well, even if it is less explicit in his work. I will
not rehearse in detail the various facets of these discussions I have found use-
ful, nor how I have tried to bring some aspects of these earlier debates, as well
as discussions about value pluralism that Weber pioneered (and that were in-
fluentially brought into contemporary political thought by Isaiah Berlin), into
dialogue with Dumont’s work. I have published on some aspects of this work in
Brazilian journals, including in one case in a paper that you were kind enough
to respond to in very productive terms (Robbins, 2014, 2015c; Duarte, 2014). But
I would like to mention one problematic that I have found to be central to a wide
range of debates about values – a problematic that I have come to think of as
absolutely fundamental to progress in this field. I mention this point here be-
cause I can introduce what I have in mind by quoting an observation that Dur-
kheim (1974: 81-82) makes about values in one of the pieces I mentioned above:
“One the one hand, all value presupposes appreciation by an individual in relation with
a particular sensibility. What has value is in some way good; what is good is desired,
and all desire is a psychological state. Nevertheless the values under discussion have
the objectivity of things. How can these two characteristics, which at fi rst blush ap-
pear contradictory, be reconciled? How, in fact, can a state of feeling be independent
of the subject that feels it?”
664
665
particularly outside of Brazil. You are likely to be better placed to do this than
I am, having participated in the Brazilian overcoming of this resistance. But
thinking about the anthropological traditions in which I was trained, it is per-
haps fair to say that the nation itself, like the notion of ‘civilization,’ which has
shown some uptake in those circles of sociology and history where Dumont’s
work is appreciated, has rarely been an object of anthropological study. ‘Nation-
alism’ enjoyed a major vogue as a topic in the 1980s and 1990s, but it is worth
noting that even this topic was studied by anthropologists mostly as a feature
of the culture or ideology of a specific locale or institution (or set of institutions)
and not as a feature of something like a ‘national’ culture or ideology. The fact
that Dumont was willing to speak in national terms of places like India, France
and Germany of course exposed him to a lot of criticism from those who did not
see these as appropriate units of anthropological study. I once heard a lecture
by Peter Worsley, who is widely credited with coining the term ‘third world’ in
English, though he humbly offers that he simply translated it from the usage of
a French scholar. He said that when he first began studying social anthropology
in the UK in the early 1940s, “we did not study ‘small-scale societies,’ we stud-
ied ‘tiny societies’!” Almost no anthropologists in the current era would want
to limit anthropological research even to Worsley’s once too-big small-scale
societies, and even sticking to one location is no longer always in favor. But
there is, perhaps, some hangover of our ‘tiny society’ beginnings in our trepida-
tion when it comes to trying to think on what you are here calling a national
level. Clearly, there is more work to be done on figuring out why it is this kind
of social formation that we fight shy of discussing.
As an aside here, I do think it is noteworthy that Melanesia moved for a
time into the center of anthropological theoretical debate precisely when schol-
ars like Roy Wagner (quite likely influenced by Dumont in this regard – see
above), Marilyn Strathern, and Chris Gregory began to write confidently about
‘Melanesia,’ and not just about the ‘tiny’ societies that compose it. It is clear
that Amazonianist anthropology has made a similar move to the center of
theoretical debate recently while doing precisely the same thing – opening up
discussion of ‘Amazonian’ thought and world, rather than sticking only to re-
ports of the single locales in which people do fieldwork. So, anthropology does
sometimes find some room to talk about something greater than single, small
or tiny societies, and it tends to ascend to this level at precisely those moments
in which its theoretical confidence in one program or another is on its way up.
But to date, this kind of move seems to have worked best when there is no hint
that the ‘larger’ unit in question has a national character. As you note in your
question, that terrain largely remains to be explored.
L.F.D.D. In one of your texts concerning the urgent need to launch an ‘anthro-
pology of Christianity,’ you mention the existence of an ‘anthropology of Islam’
the presence of louis dumont
666
(or one of Buddhism). In some areas of the world we can even observe a direct
competition unfold between Islamic and Christian brands of proselytism, for
example in sub-Saharan East Africa. Have you had the opportunity to evaluate
the quality of this production and its potential for a comparative program with
the thriving studies about Christian conversions?
J.R. I have to confess that I have not read much about conversion per se in the
anthropology of Islam. Recent work in that tradition has been hugely important
in the anthropology of ethics, and I think some of that work can be usefully
reread from a value-theoretical perspective, which is something I have been
working on a bit. I also know a lot of work is now under way studying the rela-
tions of Christianity and Islam in sub-Saharan Africa, and I have even heard
the new coinage ‘Chrislam’ bandied about a bit, though I am not sure that the
work which unfolds under this rubric will focus on conversion. J.D.Y. Peel’s last
book (2015) is certainly a major contribution to the study of Christianity and
Islam in Africa, and it does contain some thinking about conversion. But again,
I have not myself found much new work on the topic of conversion that has
changed my own thinking. Indeed, I recently had an occasion to think about
the status of conversion as a topic in anthropology, and I came away with the
strong sense that it has never really been a core topic in the discipline (and
that includes in the anthropology of Christianity), perhaps because of the way
it always raises issues of discontinuity that anthropology usually prefers to
avoid (see below; and perhaps Peel’s own educational formation as a sociologist,
rather than as an anthropologist, is relevant to his own long history of interest
in and contribution to work on this topic). Indeed, I think perhaps the only re-
ally seminal, wholly original anthropological work on conversion has been
Robin Horton’s (1971, 1975a, 1975b). So much of the other influential work comes
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 647 – 679, december, 2017
from sociology (see Gooren, 2010 for a wide ranging discussion of this literature
from the pen of an anthropologist). It is perhaps in part for this reason that
although an attempt to think about the nature of conversion (in critical dialogue
with Horton) was central to my book Becoming sinners, as a topic it has, for me,
rather been absorbed in what I take to be a wider effort to develop an approach
to cultural change (Robbins, 2017). I realize this has to count as a disappointing
answer in relation to the part of your question that asks about the anthropol-
ogy of Islam and work from Africa, but I fear that on those topics, as they relate
to conversion, I do not really have much new to say.
667
sects, whose membership has now risen to millions of adepts. These sects offer
a very broad spectrum of doctrinal and experiential versions of Christianity,
some of which clearly do not adhere to the interiorizing ethical alternative you
have been dealing with (“It is quite likely that all of this imagery borrows on
Christian, and particularly Protestant, conceptions of conversion as something
that must touch the depths of the person, and not just their outward behavior”
– Robbins, 2011b: 414). Some analyses have been addressing these versions as
an alternative model of Christian devotion, associated with the traditional cat-
egory of parrhesia (revived by M. Foucault). An issue of Religião e Sociedade, a
Brazilian journal dedicated to the study of religion, has appeared this year on
the theme of Christian ‘testimonies’ in Brazil and in Africa. Two of the articles
stress the chiliastic, immanent, pragmatic, embodied dimension of these reli-
gious experiences, with a virtual absence of an ethical, universalistic condition
(Bonfim, 2017; Reinhardt, 2017). Is this alternative visible in some of the other
ethnographic material produced by your fellow researchers around the world?
J.R. This is a very interesting question. I know some of Bonfim’s and Reinhardt’s
work, but not the pieces you mention, so I am at a bit of handicap in trying to
address it. Certainly I think Evangelical (including Pentecostal but also Funda-
mentalist) forms of Christianity have a tremendous capacity to expand people’s
sense of their inner lives and to direct them to focus on this part of their expe-
rience. This is something your colleague Aparecida Vilaça, Bambi Schieffelin and
I came upon somewhat inductively in writing a comparative article about our
own experiences of fieldwork with recent converts (Robbins et al., 2014). Of
course it does not always have to go this way. But my limited knowledge of par-
rhesia suggests that it might be put into interesting dialogue with the work on
sincerity that has been done by those looking at Christian notions of language
and the place that they sometimes give to notions in internal mental life.
In keeping with a general upsurge in anthropological interest in em-
bodiment, this topic is now receiving lots of attention in relation to all manner
of religious traditions. I am less familiar with arguments about what sounds
like ethically disinterested versions of Pentecostal millenarianism, though it
would be fascinating to know more about this (and I suppose, for example, that
one of Richard Werbner’s [2011] recent books might be read as edging onto
something like this kind of territory in its study of young charismatic healers,
or as he calls them ‘hustlers,’ in Botswana). It is quite clear that the anthropol-
ogy of Christianity is going to have to develop in some radical new directions
if it is going to continue to thrive. Many of the older debates (about, say, indi-
vidualism, language, and even change) are now quite mature – they are not
settled by any means, but new positions have become harder and harder to
formulate while traversing ground that has been so extensively covered. So I
think the kind of work that Bonfim and Reinhardt are doing is crucial. Though
I might conclude by saying something provocative in the hopes that it could
the presence of louis dumont
668
serve to keep the discussion developing: I have to confess that just as I said
about the possibility of Christians who do not value salvation above, I also think
a case for completely ethically indifferent Pentecostals would have to be made
in rich ethnographic detail to be wholly convincing (not least because it is hard
to prove an absence). Once it is made in those terms (and these articles I have
not seen may well do that), it will surely have the kind of comparative impor-
tance you mention in your question.
specting the native” model side of things, creating discontinuity can be some-
thing people themselves value. It is perhaps never on the level of a paramount
value – though in some models of modernity it is certainly ranked very highly. It
was certainly a value in Urapmin – something people cared about, felt they had
realized to a great extent, and worked to maintain by policing what in Christian
terms might be called ‘backsliding.’ I do not think Dumont ever reckoned much
with discontinuity as a value in this sense, though I suppose one would have to
reread his work on change carefully to be really sure (it being hard, as I noted
above in a different context, to prove an absence). On the other hand, there is the
question of whether people’s lives, and in my own work their culture or what
Dumont would call their ‘ideology’ (these are not precisely the same, but there is
enough overlap that for now we can let the differences go), have in fact changed.
I think Dumont is quite attentive to this kind of discontinuity in most of his ma-
jor texts. And this, along with attention to people’s own valuations of change, is
also a focus of my own work in Urapmin (one place where I try to lay out some of
the major empirically demonstrable changes in a succinct way is Robbins, 2010).
an interview with joel robbins | luiz fernando dias duarte
669
670
The second point is one I think that I made in spirit, if not very fully, in
a passing comment in my book Becoming sinners, but that is often, and quite
understandably, lost when people read the book (one exception is McDougall,
2009, who does make this point central to her reading of the book). The passage
in my book that I have in mind is on page 311. It is the final passage at the end
of the chapter just before the Conclusion. The main ethnographic argument of
the book is that for all their successful efforts at discontinuity, traditional Urap-
min moral understandings and the value of relationalism on which they rest
are still fundamental to most of Urapmin social life outside the religious realm,
and that the contradictions between their traditional relationalist morality and
their new individualist Christian one are what drive their sense of themselves
as sinful. Here near the end of the book I suggest that this situation has come
about because the Urapmin version of Charismatic Christianity does not provide
them with a model of how to establish a working society in Christian terms – it
does not come with enough of a place for holism, we might say, to allow for this
(even their traditional culture, which made relationalism paramount and did
not put holism at the top of its hierarchy, as we discussed above, did allow for
the creation of a working social formation). This leads me to suggest at this
point in the book that: “It would, I think, take the dominance among the Urap-
min of those social forms through which Western individuals succeed in inhab-
iting this world, especially the capitalist market, for individualism finally to be
completely at home there.” What I want to add to this observation here is that
I have recently read a very influential US theologian arguing that in fact Chris-
tianity rarely in its history has wanted to create entire social formations – it
almost always leaves much of social life, such as those parts of it which produce
political and economic institutions, to other aspects of a culture to work out
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 647 – 679, december, 2017
(Tanner, 1997: 97). This provides another reason that we have to give up on the
notion that discontinuity or rupture, at least in its Christian form, should be
defined by the total erasure of everything that came before. This is not what
Christians aim for and it likely never wholly comes about (though again, it may
be not always be people’s prior ‘religion’ which survives, especially if the period
of conversion is in the very distant past). What we are looking for when we look
for radical change, then, to repeat my main point again, is the introduction of
new values and/or a change in previous value hierarchies. This is the form dis-
continuity tends to take in settings of Christian conversion. This also, like my
first observation above, leaves room for us to find Dumont attending to issues
of what I would want to call discontinuity and change, even as he insists that
the value of holism is never completely lost to any actual social formation.
L.F.D.D. In your Finnish interview, you mentioned and developed the impres-
sion that “anthropological theory is extremely fragmented right now,” referring
to the absence of any really encompassing major contemporary theoretical
tendency (Robbins, 2008: 80). Do you still have that impression now, eight years
an interview with joel robbins | luiz fernando dias duarte
671
afterwards? And what are the prospects for a broader and more substantial
reception of Dumont’s ideas in the present?
J.R. One of the things I was trying to do in the part of the interview you mention
was not only point to the fragmentation of theory, but also try to give some
possible explanations for it. One reason was simply increasing specialization,
with specialisms being based primarily on ‘topics’ and not theories, and with
people in each specialty responding to their own theoretical canon and talking
less and less across them. The other was the fact that, I think, for much of the
1980s and 1990s, many anthropologists were very busy changing the key dimen-
sions of their object of study: social formations now had to be the products of
histories and be understood as in part constituted out of their connections with
other formations, and some of those connections needed to be seen as global
or at least quite vast in character. I think it was hard work for us to redefine
our object in this way, and to learn how to study these new objects once we
had. The shared energy that might have gone into theory building went, I would
suggest, into this project instead. Thus, for example, 10 or 15 years ago the
majority of PhD students across the full range of anthropology departments in
the world probably could not give you a very rounded picture of what Levi-
Straussian structuralism looked like. They might know one theoretical tradition
really well, but these would differ between them, or in some cases they might
not even know one really well, being mostly concerned with issues that I would
say have to do with how to define one’s object. At the same time, I think all of
them could tell you what multi-sited fieldwork is and why, in very many cases,
they wanted to do it. People were working hard to achieve broad agreement
about the kinds of objects they studied and the way they studied them in meth-
odological terms, but not so hard on pushing ahead on matters of theory.
I do have a sense that some of this is changing now. Since I made that
point, for example, I have come to realize how many anthropologists have
adopted theoretical models of the universality of certain kinds of human suf-
fering and made them the basis of their anthropological endeavors (Robbins,
2013). What gets called the ‘Ontological Turn,’ which as an aside I might add
strikes me as a counterweight to the suffering turn in some ways, has also
galvanized conversations across specialties in an impressive way. A range of
phenomenological and existential positions seem to be attracting a lot of young
people, and they may in the future bring together what I see as at the moment
still a pretty diverse field into a single major theoretical position. The interest
in values is not yet as robust as these other moves I mention, though I think it
has a chance to develop in this direction. The word ‘values’ is certainly on
everyone’s lips now, but quite often it is not theoretically cashed out to any
great extent. Perhaps, though, this is not my own project, there will need to be
some kind of reconsideration of the ways Dumontian and more Marxist and
generally political-economy inspired approaches can work together if this
the presence of louis dumont
672
673
NOTE
1 Joel Robbins’s bio and a list of publications is available at:
<http://www.socanth.cam.ac.uk/directory/professor-joel-
robbins>.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aragão, Luiz Tarlei de. (1979). Ville, quartier, famille à St.
Quentin en Yvelines. Esprit, 3: 51-61.
Aragão, Luiz Tarlei de. (in press). Coronéis, candangos e dou-
tores: por uma antropologia dos valores. Edited by Luiz Ed-
uardo Abreu. Brasília: Editora Virtual.
Barbosa, Lívia. (1992). O jeitinho brasileiro: a arte de ser mais
igual que os outros. Rio de Janeiro: Campus.
Barraud, Cécile; Iteanu, André & Moya, Ismaël. (2016). Puis-
sance et impuissance de la valeur. Paris: CNRS Éditions.
Barth, Fredrik. (1975). Ritual and Knowledge among the Bakta-
man of New Guinea. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Berger, Peter et al. (2010). The anthropology of values: essays
in honor of Georg Pfeffer. Delhi: Longman.
Bialecki, Jon. (2012).Virtual Christianity in an age of nomi-
nalist Anthropology. Anthropological Theory, 12/3, p. 295-319.
Bialecki, Jon & Daswani, Girish. (2015). What is an indi-
vidual: the view from Christianity. Hau: Journal of Ethno-
graphic Theory, 5/1, p. 271-294.
Bonfim, Evandro de Sousa. (2017). Das relações entre Exem-
plo e Parresia: formas de evangelização católica. Religião e
Sociedade, 36/2, Dossiê Testemunho, p. 71-84.
Bourdieu, Pierre. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brague, Rémi. (2002). Eccentric culture: a theory of western
civilization. South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press.
Da Matta, Roberto. (1983). Le dilèmme brésilien: individu,
individualisme et personne dans les sociétés semi-tradi-
tionelles. Esprit, 79.
DaMatta, Roberto. (1979). Carnavais, malandros e heróis: para
uma sociologia do dilema brasileiro. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar.
Duarte, Luiz Fernando Dias. (2015a). Louis Dumont. In:
Rocha, Everardo & Frid, Marina (eds.). Os antropólogos (de
the presence of louis dumont
674
675
676
677
678
679
Serge Tcherkézoff I
-antropologia.
684
685
686
A contradição inicial
A ambição da antropologia social levanta um problema particular. Com efeito,
é o universalismo humanista – a convicção da unidade do gênero humano – que
fundamenta a ambição comparativa da antropologia: as sociedades humanas
são comparáveis, pois são compostas de seres humanos. Não é, todavia, o ser
humano como indivíduo sempre similar que é o objeto da comparação, mas,
antes, as “sociedades”. Essa é a razão pela qual Mauss e, depois, Dumont pre-
feriram falar em “sociologia” (comparativa). 6 Ora, o universalismo só fornece
como ferramentas de trabalho a ideia de indivíduo e aquela de semelhança
entre comportamentos. Como observar então as sociedades e as variações nas
formas de identidade (esses múltiplos “nós”, esses sistemas de pertencimento
“identitário”) ao mesmo tempo em que se trabalha em prol do universalismo?
Como manter juntas a unidade do Homem e a diversidade das sociedades? 7
artigo | serge tcherkézoff
687
688
to, afastando tudo aquilo que contribua para uma grande divisão das sociedades.
O objetivo da antropologia, pelo contrário, como observa Mauss nesta última ci-
tação, consiste em encontrar as “razões gerais” dos “fenômenos particulares”.
Para tanto, é mister observar o “colorido” que assume o fenômeno em cada caso.
Evidentemente, esse nível de estudo é determinado pelo plano superior
que define o procedimento estruturalista, pois a busca de uma comparação en-
tre sociedades globais é justifi cada pela certeza prévia da unidade mental uni-
versal. Esse nível, entretanto, ainda que subordinado, afirma sua diferença. An-
tes de poder comparar e notar eventual semelhança entre duas configurações
encontradas em duas sociedades, deveremos ter relacionado cada uma dessas
configurações à totalidade do sistema de pertencimento da sociedade em questão. As-
sim, a comparação das sociedades requer condições suplementares em relação
ao modo de proceder lévi-straussiano, em que as “formas de pensamento” dife-
rentes são principalmente apreendidas “sob a ângulo das propriedades comuns”
(Lévi-Strauss, 1962: 17). Seguimos em direção ao nível que nos ocupa, situado
acima do relativismo cultural, o qual aprisionaria toda sociedade em uma con-
cha fechada.
A generalização prévia
Essa escolha do plano de comparação, abaixo do universal mental e acima do
relativismo cultural, determina que a generalização prévia – operação sempre
necessária para fundamentar uma comparação universalista – não se refira
mais ao mental (ao “inconsciente” lévi-straussiano e à “função simbólica”), mas
à universalidade das representações de pertencimento a um grupo concreto.
Primeiramente, uma palavra acerca da afirmação inicial: a generalização
fundamenta a comparação, e o contrário não é verdadeiro. Há duas maneiras de
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 683 – 713, dezembro, 2017
689
Quanto ao método comparativo, ele não consiste, com frequência tenho salienta-
do, em primeiramente comparar e depois em generalizar. Contrariamente ao que
se acredita muito amiúde, generalizar é justamente o que fundamenta e torna
possível a comparação. Diante de uma pluralidade de experiências, começamos
por buscar em que nível convém se posicionar para que os fatos observados e des-
critos sejam mutuamente conversíveis. E é somente quando se logra formulá-los em
uma língua comum, e graças a esse prévio aprofundamento, que a comparação se
torna legítima (Lévi-Strauss, 1988: 179-180; grifos nossos).
A comparação que nos concerne, por sua vez, visa à universalidade das
representações de pertencimento a um grupo concreto. A generalização prévia
que nos é útil diz respeito a esse aspecto. A tradução deve então levar em conta
este imperativo holístico: perceber um espaço de pertencimento, ou seja, um
“todo”. As relações apropriadas para se modelizar um pertencimento são da for-
ma todo/parte, conjunto/elemento, e não mais simples oposições distintivas.
Precisamos traduzir o fato de que “eles” (toda a sociedade) constituem uma tota-
lidade vis-à-vis “nosso” individualismo universalista.
690
relações a) cuja referência não esteja situada fora do campo relacional e b) que
constituam uma interdependência orientada: relações todo/parte. Dizer que a
totalidade é metodológica, implica igualmente afirmar que toda e qualquer
sociedade, por mais ocidental-moderna que seja, pode e deve ser analisada
desse modo (Tcherkézoff, 1994a).
Trata-se, por conseguinte, de buscar sistematicamente as relações todo/
parte. Quais as razões pelas quais se faz isso tão pouco na prática antropoló-
gica? Acredita-se observar fatos como fatos, fatos “brutos”, tão somente distin-
guindo-os entre si – em oposição distintiva –, para depois se interrogar, em um
segundo momento, acerca da valoração relativa do fato observado, em função
do contexto em que ele aparece. Em suma, dissociam-se abusivamente o fato
e o valor, o que equivale, cabe salientar, a identificar-traduzir mediante proje-
ção etnocêntrica, concedendo em seguida a palavra aos interessados para que
nos digam apenas de que maneira, positiva ou negativa, e segundo qual ordem
de preferência eles utilizam esse objeto por nós identificado. Ao contrário, em
um sistema “total”, um fato só tem significação por seu lugar no todo (é só isso
que determina seu “valor”). Em vez de separar fato e valor, em lugar de crer
inocentemente que a distinção seja uma operação mental neutra quando está
relacionada a um todo social, convém se ater, desde o início e unicamente, ao
lugar dos homens e das coisas no todo, constituindo-se esse lugar-no-todo na
capacidade de cada homem e de cada ideia de representar a identidade coleti-
va mais fortemente do que outro homem ou outra ideia. Certamente, a antro-
pologia entendeu de longa data que o objeto “sociedade” deve ser descrito co-
mo um sistema de relações. Como, porém, não se concentra na análise das
relações hierárquicas (todo/parte) no sentido supracitado, ela acredita já ob-
servar relações quando, na verdade, está simplesmente identificando as opo-
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 683 – 713, dezembro, 2017
sições distintivas.
Aqui temos todo um campo de estudos: quais são as ferramentas capa-
zes de dar conta das relações “hierárquicas”, no estrito sentido de “relações
todo/parte” (o que não tem nada a ver com a desigualdade/estratificação)? Pas-
sei vários anos, em número relevante de publicações, desenvolvendo tal ins-
trumental, 11 ao mesmo tempo em que mostrava o que ele devia a Dumont e a
seu conceito de “oposição hierárquica”, a partir de 1978, quando Dumont in-
sistiu, mais nitidamente do que em suas publicações anteriores, no aspecto
metodológico desse instrumental necessário à antropologia holística. 12 Publi-
cações mais recentes acumularam os exemplos de campo, oriundos de Samoa,
no intuito de ilustrar a vantagem proporcionada por tais ferramentas. 13 Aqui,
em razão da falta de espaço e porque essas publicações estão acessíveis, não
desenvolverei sobremaneira o comentário relativo a esse aspecto de nossa dis-
cussão e a seus dois principais componentes: a oposição “hierárquica” no sen-
tido da relação todo/parte, em contraste com a oposição distintiva da antropo-
logia estrutural ou funcionalista; e a hierarquia entre “níveis” (de valor), de
artigo | serge tcherkézoff
691
[A propósito da observação na Índia] Nós dissemos que o nosso objeto primeiro era
um sistema de ideias e de valores [as noções de “puro/impuro” que hierarquizam as
castas]. Nós igualmente reconhecemos, entrementes, no território ou na localidade,
o exemplo de um fator [o poder sobre a terra] que, mesmo não estando diretamente
inserido na ideologia, intervém no nível das manifestações concretas do sistema de
castas...
Percebemos duas categorias de aspectos de modo distinto, de tal sorte que a distinção
entre eles expressa a nossa posição em relação ao objeto. Com efeito, por um lado, é a teoria
nativa que nos possibilita atribuir o devido nome às coisas: quando falamos em casta,
traduzimos mais ou menos um conceito nativo ( jat...15); se, ao contrário, falarmos em
“estratificação social”, estaremos introduzindo julgamentos arbitrários (...que casta e
classe social são... da mesma natureza...). Por outro lado, se formos capazes de perce-
ber nos fatos outra dimensão, distinta daquela que a consciência nativa considera [no
caso, o poder], isso ocorre graças à comparação, graças em primeiro lugar à comparação
implícita e inevitável com a nossa própria sociedade. Isso deve estar evidente.
louis dumont, a comparação das sociedades e o diálogo cultural
692
Assim sendo, devemos proceder em dois tempos: primeiramente ir à escola dos hin-
dus... para ver as coisas como eles... [...]
Mas a ideologia não é tudo. Fato é que a observação de qualquer conjunto local revela
uma vida social que, embora seja orientada de modo decisivo pela ideologia, supera
esta última simultânea e amplamente... (Dumont, 1966: 55-59; grifos e entrecolchetes
nossos).
Assim, no caso da Índia, Dumont (1996) veria operando “em todo o con-
junto concreto” de castas, “o princípio formal”, por um lado, e, por outro, “uma
matéria-prima que ele ordena e engloba logicamente, mas não justifica”; esse
será “o equivalente daquilo que nomeamos... poder, território, propriedade”:
[Porque cada sociedade concreta se nos aparece como uma determinada escolha
de valores entre todos os valores concebíveis] Essa escolha dos valores tem como
consequência o fato de que alguns aspectos da realidade social sejam clara e cons-
cientemente elaborados, ao passo que outros são deixados à sombra. Para expressar
o que a sociedade considerada não expressa, o sociólogo não pode inventar conceitos,
pois, quando tenta fazê-lo, ele apenas consegue, tal como no caso da “estratificação”
[o conceito da antropologia política anglo-americana dos anos 1940-1960; cf. Dumont,
1966: 314n.], traduzir de modo a um só tempo pretensioso e obscuro os preconceitos
de sua própria sociedade (Dumont, 1966 [1960]: 323; entrecolchetes nossos).
693
...nota-se: primeiramente, que os dados sociais se tornam fatos ou são levados ao nos-
so conhecimento, sempre e tão somente, por meio de ou graças a ideias (uma linguagem),
em seguida, que eles chegam até nós de dois modos diferentes, quer recorramos às
ideias dos próprios sujeitos ou às nossas. O postulado de Beattie, que distingue uma
forma e um conteúdo, uma “linguagem” e uma realidade substancial, é na realida-
de uma proposição comparativa: do ponto de vista nativo, há uma linguagem que
expressa suficientemente a realidade social; do ponto de vista do antropólogo, ao
relacionar implícita ou explicitamente o que ele observa com a sua própria expe-
riência na sua própria sociedade, há algo distinto na realidade observada, diferente
daquilo que veem os próprios interessados nela: a oposição... é aquela entre o que é
diretamente conhecido nas categorias da sociedade estudada e o que é conhecido in-
diretamente, por meio das categorias da sociedade do próprio antropólogo (Dumont,
1971: 31-32; grifo do autor).
694
A mudança social
Esse modelo dumontiano, assim tornado totalmente “metodológico”, bem dis-
tante de aprisionar a antropologia em uma visão “dissociada do tempo”, como
alguns críticos o pretendem, possibilita igualmente conduzir estudos diacrô-
nicos, conseguindo uma vez mais reduzir ao mínimo os preconceitos ocidentais
concernentes à evolução das sociedades. Havíamos dedicado uma obra coleti-
va a essa questão, além de ter exaustivamente desenvolvido o exemplo de
Samoa nesse plano diacrônico, logrando assim distinguir o que são transfor-
mações que não afrontam o sistema de pertencimento e aquelas que, se vierem
a chegar a seu fim, constituiriam realmente uma mudança de sociedade (a
partir do momento em que aquilo que é modificado no “nível 2” provoca mo-
dificações no “nível 1”). 17
695
696
A religião
Samoa, à imagem de toda a Polinésia, é de religião cristã, desde a evangelização
missionária, protestante e depois igualmente católica, no século XIX. Pois bem,
nada de particular nisso, a não ser se interrogar – os trabalhos a respeito são
numerosos – sobre a história dessa evangelização, a maneira pela qual os po-
linésios fizeram do cristianismo “a sua religião”, que consideram “tradicional”,
e depois a chegada bem mais recente dos movimentos pentecostais, carismá-
ticos etc. e a oposição das igrejas tradicionais a essas novidades. Constata-se,
contudo, que, semanalmente, os samoanos vão à igreja, bem como que, diaria-
mente antes da refeição da noite, uma oração em família é organizada em
casa. Que colorido particular pode ter a vida religiosa? Precisamos nos reportar
ao faamatai.
Tão logo se coloca a questão da interação entre o que é para nós a religião
(ou prática religiosa) e o faamatai, observa-se um elemento particular (aos nos-
sos olhos) durante a missa dominical: as dádivas feitas ao pastor do vilarejo
são publicamente anunciadas e todos os futuros comentários após a missa
estarão relacionados ao fato de saber se os representantes do clã Tal doaram o
suficiente para “manter a sua posição” (no faamatai), relativamente aos outros
clãs. O prestígio relativo entre clãs, definido igualmente em cada reunião formal
dos “chefes” matai, em função dos respectivos discursos, da persuasão de Tal
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 683 – 713, dezembro, 2017
697
A estratificação social
Outra questão, voltada para a ou as estratificações sociais, as “hierarquias”,
como se diz muito amiúde em sociologia; mas, para nós, é desde logo necessá-
rio precisar que a palavra é então empregada em sentido não dumontiano, de-
vendo ser precisamente entendida como uma estratificação social. Que dizer
então das hierarquias (no senso comum) entre as pessoas em Samoa? Qual
seria o respectivo colorido? Se não quisermos nos ater às evidências, a esse
“banal” que Mauss buscava superar, portanto, não apenas e tão simplesmente
notar que um inferior tem atitudes de respeito e de obediência perante um
superior, será novamente necessário nos reportarmos ao faamatai e, ao fazê-lo,
provocarmos uma comparação entre formas ocidentais da estratificação e for-
mas locais.
Já há muito tempo, eu havia tomado o contexto, não poderia haver nada
de mais banal, do transporte público: os ônibus que transportam os habitantes
dos vilarejos para a cidade. Cada vilarejo tem e tinha de longa data ao menos
um, e com frequência vários, desses ônibus (propriedade privada de uma ou
outra das famílias da localidade). Invariavelmente, há mais passageiros que
lugares sentados, quer desde o início do trajeto quer após as sucessivas paradas.
Constatei com espanto que ninguém ficava de pé no corredor central, a partir
da ocupação total de todos os lugares, e que a única solução era ir sentar-se
nos joelhos de um passageiro já sentado. A explicação não estava, ao menos
principalmente, nos sacolejos ocasionados pelas estradas em mau estado. Ocor-
re que, no faaSamoa, manter-se em pé ao lado de pessoas sentadas é o que há
de mais “deseducado”, trata-se de uma provocação. A interação entre pessoas
sempre deve acontecer, no contexto da vida social nos vilarejos, no transcorrer
de reuniões em que todos estão sentados em círculo (em grandes “casas” aber-
tas e redondas ou ovais), cada qual apoiado em um dos postes que formam a
circunferência e cujo círculo sustenta o teto. Seja qual for o grau de calor dos
debates durante a reunião, ficar subitamente em pé significa de pronto que se
quer abandonar o universo da discussão para entrar na esfera do confronto
físico violento. Aquele que esquecer disso, e na sua exaltação ficar em pé, será
imediatamente expulso manu militari da reunião, pelos rapazes do vilarejo sen-
tados do lado de fora (como sempre é o caso em uma reunião formal), os quais
escutam e assim aprendem a arte da oratória, mas também intervêm como
polícia local, caso necessário. É justamente nesse contexto cultural, sem dúvi-
da, que um ônibus não possui nenhuma barra ou qualquer alça previstas que
permitam a um passageiro nela segurar-se enquanto estiver em pé.
Outro espanto foi ver que, quando determinados passageiros subiam, os
que estavam sentados na parte da frente se levantavam para lhes ceder o lugar,
indo se amontoar na parte traseira sobre os joelhos de outros já sentados no
fundo (e às vezes ocorria que três pessoas empilhavam-se, cada uma sentando-
-se sobre o joelho da que se sentara primeiro). Notei que se tratava do status da
louis dumont, a comparação das sociedades e o diálogo cultural
698
A relação de propriedade
Outro exemplo que aparenta ser universalista a priori: a noção de propriedade,
de bem possuído. Qual é a atitude dos samoanos nesse âmbito? Poderíamos
escrever páginas sobre o fato de que, em uma sociedade em que a ênfase no
coletivo é acentuada a tal ponto (o sistema matai e todas as suas regras), a
veemência das eventuais discussões sobre a posse (“isto é meu!”) pode ser bem
considerável. Aqui, novamente nada além do banal, ao menos para aqueles que
não cometem o erro de acreditar que, em sociedades que pretendemos quali-
artigo | serge tcherkézoff
699
A violência
Outro exemplo, desde logo e uma vez mais universal: a violência. Nenhuma
sociedade na Terra dela escapa, todos sabemos. O que então dizer de específi-
co a seu respeito? Listar as ocorrências que levam a que um desentendimento
se torne um enfrentamento físico, eventualmente mortal, não confere qualquer
louis dumont, a comparação das sociedades e o diálogo cultural
700
701
A sexualidade
Esse esclarecimento trazido pelo colorido singular que assume a violência na
sociedade samoana presta-se ainda à percepção do colorido samoano desta
outra atividade humana universal: a sexualidade, último exemplo por nós aqui
abordado. Nada de muito particular em Samoa, em comparação com tantas
outras sociedades, na Oceania ou alhures, no que tange à prática da sexualida-
de, e tampouco acerca da grande desigualdade relativa às proibições que pesam
sobre rapazes e garotas. Notemos apenas, no tocante às evidentes particulari-
dades para a observação e seja qual for o método, que a noção missionária do
pecado da carne não fincou, de forma alguma, raízes em solo samoano. Se
acrescentarmos a ausência completa de toda e qualquer ideia de mutilação
sexual feminina, compreenderemos que o reconhecimento da existência do
prazer, até mesmo para os dois sexos, não é barrada por outras considerações.
Mas nem pensar em falar a respeito! Com efeito, o que é bem mais ines-
perado, sobretudo após a observação que acabamos de fazer, é a quase impos-
sibilidade para o visitante de simplesmente falar sobre sexualidade com seus
hóspedes samoanos, seja em uma conversa com várias pessoas ou até mesmo
a dois. “Não, não se deve falar disso!” E, no entanto, nada a ver com o que seria
uma capa de pudor herdada da época missionária, visto que, em que pesem
meus esforços para fazer com que se evocasse qualquer laço entre o ato sexual
(o “fazer” em samoano) e a “vergonha”, no sentido mais geral (noção bem co-
nhecida e constantemente evocada: ma), meus interlocutores respondiam com
a negativa. Mais uma vez, porém, as coisas se esclarecem bem melhor se com-
pararmos a sexualidade (representações da prática) com o faamatai. Tanto quan-
to cada um é livre para fazer o que quiser (e, para ser sucinto, com quem ele
quiser e que consinta) fora da área do vilarejo, portanto, na “selva”, o fato de
mencionar a “coisa” no vilarejo, ou de evocá-la com gestos, é bem mais que
inconveniente. A tal ponto que, na vida pública da comunidade, o observador
que se limitasse a anotar manifestações de carinho teria dificuldade em saber
se a dupla observada se compunha de dois cônjuges ou de dois parentes, até
porque ele não observaria nenhum gesto de carinho nos dois casos. Mais uma
vez, avançando nos diálogos verbais, na análise do vocabulário, das atitudes etc.
louis dumont, a comparação das sociedades e o diálogo cultural
702
(Tcherkézoff, 2003: 277-442), acabamos por notar uma configuração das repre-
sentações, a um só tempo, muito particular e inesperada.
Desde o início das minhas estadas em Samoa (1981), anotei uma série
de observações que me surpreendiam e que acabaram por compor um todo
coerente, ainda que muito singular. Por um lado, nos vilarejos e no seio das
famílias em que fui acolhido, a totalidade das conversas, das atitudes, dos
termos de parentesco, em sutileza e em referência, pareciam se limitar a um
mundo de “famílias” aiga, em que o lugar de cada um era determinado por uma
genealogia, portanto, por caminhos de parentesco (laços que nós, ocidentais,
dizemos ser “de sangue”), e não por laços de casamento, de aliança entre clãs,
de política matrimonial. Cada qual era um “herdeiro”, uma criança “da terra”.
Levei algum tempo para distinguir aqueles que estavam lá na qualidade de
“cônjuges” (sempre “vindos de outro lugar”). Nesse mundo, todas as preocupa-
ções aparentemente se voltavam para o que se pode dizer ou omitir, acerca da
maneira pela qual se portar em uma reunião, para o registro de vocabulário
possível, ou estavam relacionadas ao posto, ao status, justificado por memórias
genealógicas. As questões que me importavam, referentes ao que se espera
socialmente de um “homem” ou de uma “mulher”, não encontravam resposta,
salvo nessa esfera em que os dois sexos são irmãos e irmãs, tios e tias etc.,
jamais marido e mulher. Quanto à sexualidade, ao que era possível se esperar
dela, sobre o que era tolerado ou não, sobre as categorias que podiam ou não
nutrir uma relação sexual, minhas questões caíam no vazio ou pareciam des-
locadas. Falava-se de tudo, com exceção de… sexualidade.
Posteriormente, em conversas que jamais ocorriam em grupo, mas ape-
nas com um único interlocutor (ou mais raramente uma interlocutora), assun-
tos ligados a práticas, obrigações, proibições etc., e relativos à sexualidade
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 683 – 713, dezembro, 2017
703
da ideologia global. No primeiro mundo, cada qual é como um irmão para uma
irmã ou uma irmã para um irmão. Esse mundo é aquele do visível, da “luz”
(noção a um só tempo física, cosmológica e bíblica). No outro mundo, o reino
humano (tagata) é feito como o reino animal (manu). Cada qual é uma “criatura
viva” mea ola, tendo como única distinção a diferença dos sexos, uma diferen-
ça que não intervém a não ser em uma única relação: a relação heterossexual.
É um mundo do sexuado-sexual: o primeiro termo implica o segundo e é nisso que
reside uma grande diferença com relação à visão ocidental contemporânea da
diferença dos sexos. Lá, humanos e animais se encontram. Trata-se do mundo
das “criaturas” (todas criadas por Deus), em que humanos e animais, sendo
“criaturas vivas” mea ola, são naturalmente machos/fêmeas e, portanto, destinadas
a se acasalarem. Por outro lado, realmente do outro lado da barreira, retomamos
o primeiro nível evocado: o mundo da comunidade do vilarejo nuu com, pouco
ou amplamente, o universo de todo o “costume” (aga-nuu: literalmente: “a es-
sência do fato de viver em comunidade”), em que cada qual é como um irmão
para uma irmã ou uma irmã para um irmão.
Essa dicotomia de referências e de definições do pertencimento indivi-
dual é fundamental na cultura samoana: 23 por um lado o vilarejo, como círcu-
lo sagrado de nomes ancestrais, por outro, um mundo sexuado-sexual. No pri-
meiro mundo, a classificação é complexa e a referência ao ato sexual não é
organizadora do conjunto. No segundo, são macho/fêmea, em relação ao ato
heterossexual. Tudo isso possibilita-nos ver o colorido da sexualidade em Samoa.
Primeiro traço desse colorido: o universo da sexualidade começa onde a socie-
dade (a vida em comunidade) cessa. Trazer essa dimensão para a sociedade é
justamente o que envergonha: rumores de relações antes do casamento, por
exemplo; mas igualmente os gestos, mesmo aqueles mais simples, mas feitos
em público, entre cônjuges. Tudo isso evoca o fato da existência do laço sexual
entre nós e abre, subitamente, a suspeita acerca do zelo de cada um pelo rumo
da comunidade, em que a esfera “privada” não deve intervir. Outra consequên-
cia particular: a quase impossibilidade, em todo caso na comunidade do vila-
rejo, de uma amizade, no sentido ocidental entre pessoas de sexo diferente. Aos
olhos dos outros, ou se é parente ou parceiro em potencial, mesmo que os in-
teressados estejam a mil léguas de pensar em tal parceria. A suspeita de rela-
ções reais, mas às escondidas, é muito rapidamente criada se duas pessoas de
sexo diferente, adolescentes ou não, se frequentarem abertamente, pois a ami-
zade sem segundas intenções é praticamente impensável. Tudo isso está no
cerne da vida do vilarejo que gera uma imagem muito forte de uma grande
parentela, em que cada um é, pelo menos à luz do dia (portanto, em público,
no “visível”, na “luz”), “como irmão e irmã” (Tcherkézoff, 2017).
Outra consequência: somente a heterossexualidade é pensável. Em razão de a
sexualidade estar unicamente no mundo das “criaturas vivas”, digamos, existir
com base no modelo animal, o que o mundo ocidental ou global chama “homos-
louis dumont, a comparação das sociedades e o diálogo cultural
704
sexualidade” torna-se impensável. Segue, uma vez mais, uma situação muito
particular para os indivíduos que são, digamos, “transgênicos” e que, em outros
universos culturais, seriam talvez homossexuais (Tcherkézoff, 2014). O laço ho-
mossexual entre mulheres é totalmente barrado, trata-se de “uma coisa dos Pa-
palagi”, dos europeus, é algo “impensável aqui” (e o único meio para mulheres
viverem essa vida, e ainda com dificuldade, consiste em emigrar). Quanto a este
tipo de laço entre homens, ele existe, mas na forma muito particular de rapazes
ou homens “afeminados”, reputados por somente procurarem como parceiros
sexuais homens hétero normativos, com os quais eles desempenham papel de
uma mulher (daí deriva a sua denominação em língua local: “como mulheres”
faafafine). Esses afeminados, tal como o povo em geral, explicam ao visitante que
eles “não são gays”, que “a homossexualidade não existe em Samoa” e, de fato,
em Samoa, nenhum desejo de relações íntimas viria à mente de um afeminado
em virtude de atração por outro afeminado. Não se trata aqui de decidir se há ou
não “homossexualidade” em Samoa, como um bom ocidental levado pelo seu
olhar estrangeiro que esquece que a noção de orientação sexual é uma invenção
inteiramente ocidental e bem datada, como nos relembra Foucault. Interessa-
-me aqui o fato de que o método seguido possibilita compreender por que, no
discurso dos samoanos que residiram no exterior, a homossexualidade “não
existe aqui”. O colorido da sexualidade samoana, ou seja, aquilo que a torna to-
talmente adstrita ao universo pensável do que denominamos heterossexualida-
de, torna o que nós denominamos homossexualidade “estranho”.
Por fim, outro ensinamento proporcionado por esse esclarecimento da
tonalidade específica da sexualidade: uma compreensão do imenso mal-enten-
dido criado pelo famoso livro L’adolescence à Samoa, de Margaret Mead (1928
para a primeira publicação em inglês, 1963 para a tradução em francês). Em
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 683 – 713, dezembro, 2017
função de suas leituras (dos antigos viajantes vindos até a Polinésia, desde
Bougainville), de sua educação universitária (as aulas sobre a Polinésia ensina-
vam que a cultura polinésia colocava a sexualidade no centro das preocupações
para todos os habitantes), assim como de seu projeto de trabalho (provar que o
universo da sexualidade é regido, ao menos em parte, pela cultura e não somen-
te pela natureza biológica do corpo humano), Mead havia chegado a compor um
quadro em que os jovens samoanos estariam inteiramente livres dos problemas
e tensões da “crise da adolescência”. De acordo com ela, a educação oferecida
a eles por sua sociedade favoreceria “o amor livre”, pois, de modo mais geral, a
estrutura social global da sociedade havia desenvolvido pouquíssimas proibi-
ções no cotidiano (“salvo para as poucas filhas de chefe”). Bem mais tarde, ou-
tros, que conheciam a sociedade samoana em maior profundidade por terem lá
vivido em anos próximos ou posteriores, tomariam a palavra. Intelectuais sa-
moanos juntaram-se a estes últimos. Os mais antigos insistiram no erro funda-
mental das interpretações de Mead, e os demais – e é isso o que aqui nos inte-
ressa – gritaram, escandalizados, e denunciaram um livro que, segundo os pró-
artigo | serge tcherkézoff
705
706
NOTAS
1 Comunicação pessoal, de aproximadamente 1978, que cito
de memória.
2 Ele já se manifestara nesse sentido em textos de 1960, mas
tais propósitos não se tornariam conhecidos para além do
círculo dos indianistas, a não ser após sua retomada em
Homo Hierarchicus (ver os “Apêndices”).
3 Segundo minhas lembranças, ao menos uma vez, Daniel
de Coppet evocou diante de mim suas conversas com Du-
mont sobre esses temas.
4 Em seus Essais sur l’individualisme (1983: cap. 4). Ver também
de Lara (2008, 2011). Igualmente no tocante a essa questão,
o aspecto metodológico de Dumont foi às vezes mal com-
preendido e levou a uma história das ideologias (Bensa,
2008).
5 Mesmo que esse nível seja da ordem da “plausibilidade” e
não da “falseabilidade”; ver Olivier de Sardan (1996, 2004).
De fato, é essencial: 1) admitir, juntamente com Passeron
(1991) e muitos outros, que as ciências sociais são apenas
interpretativas; porém 2) recusar fortemente o tema pós-
moderno e niilista segundo o qual todas as interpretações
se equivalem (o relativismo absoluto tem apenas um úni-
co destino: a rejeição do outro e, certamente, não resulta
em uma melhor compreensão de sua diferença).
6 No que diz respeito a Mauss, trata-se a um só tempo de
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 683 – 713, dezembro, 2017
707
708
709
REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS
710
711
712
713
Naomi Haynes I
Man does not only think, he acts. He has not only ideas, but values.
louis dumont
es, and life expectancy shortens, people across the continent find themselves
living in a “shadow world” (Ferguson, 2006: 15), a “no man’s land” (see Guyer,
2011), marked by a “generalized condition of semiotic suspension” (Apter, 2005:
283) in which words and actions “no longer correspond to the social interweave
as we tend to conceptualize and experience it” (de Boeck & Plissart, 2004: 34).
In moving quickly through these few descriptions of contemporary Af-
rica – and I have given only a few, it is not hard to find others – I do not wish
to make light of the fact that the last thirty years have been marked by sig-
nificant suffering for people across the continent. Many of those who live in
Zambia, the country I know best, have endured considerable hardship as a
result of the privatization of industry and the shrinking of the welfare state,
particularly as these have unfolded alongside the AIDS pandemic and the most
recent global financial crisis. My contention in this paper is therefore not that
analyses focused on the corrosive effects of “neoliberalism and other social
diseases” (Richland, 2009) are mistaken in noting that economic change has
challenged relational life or cultural practices. Rather, what concerns me here
contemporary africa through the theory of louis dumont
716
is the social science that follows from this conclusion. It is one thing to point
out the confusion that results from weakened social, economic, and political
institutions; it is quite another to assert that this confusion now takes the
analytical place once occupied by social organization.
My goal in this article is to outline a framework for analysis that I believe
addresses the question of social organization in contemporary Africa more
thoroughly than many current studies have been able to do, while at the same
time foregrounding the challenges that the neoliberal period has posed to social
life on the continent. The central task of this endeavor is highlighting the re-
lational forms that people consider to be most important. More specifically, a
salient point in studies from the region is that hierarchy is a key aspect of
social life that has been undermined by liberalization, broadly defined (e.g.
Ferguson, 2013; Hickel, 2015; Smith, 2007; Haynes & Hickel, 2016; Scherz, 2014).
I argue that hierarchy is a central social structural form in Southern Africa, and
probably elsewhere on the continent as well. I also argue that the reason that
hierarchy is so central is because it is connected to key cultural values, and
herein lies the theoretical underpinning of my argument.
In short, the model I am proposing is a reading of urban African social
life indebted primarily to Louis Dumont (1980, 1983, 1986) and focused on the
relationship between social forms or structures on the one hand and ideas or
ideology on the other. I present this approach through an analysis of Pentecos-
tal Christianity on the Zambian Copperbelt. In this article, I will show that
although Pentecostal believers have a model of how two key religious ideas –
charisma and prosperity – ought to relate to each other, the circumstances of
their religious practice make it difficult for them to keep these ideas, and the
social forms that reflect them, in what they consider to be their proper position.
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 715 – 734, december, 2017
The main theoretical problem of this paper is therefore the primary ques-
tion of Dumont’s work as well – namely, as I have just noted, how it is that
ideas and social structures are related. For Dumont, answering this question
means starting with ideology, which, at least in his work on India, meant start-
ing with religion. However, for our purposes, what is more important than his
identification of the ideological with the religious is his emphasis on what he
calls the “unitary thought” that orders a society (Dumont, 1983: 24). In Dumont’s
India this is, famously, the opposition of purity and impurity. Dumont puts this
discussion of ideology alongside an analysis of social structures by showing
how various social forms are ranked based on their capacity to articulate the
central ideological tension. Therefore, again taking up his model, the structure
or social form that best articulates the opposition of purity and impurity is a
hierarchically-arranged whole, i.e., the caste system. It is because of its rela-
tionship to ideology that the hierarchical whole becomes the most important
social form in Dumont’s India.
article | naomi haynes
717
718
social form that best articulates that thought. Incidentally, I think this process
helps us to see why Dumont offers what feels like such a capacious definition
of values – note the use of the plural noun – which includes not only ideas, but
also actions and, indeed, social forms (e.g. “Affinity as a value” (Dumont, 1983)),
as in his work each of these represents an element ranked in the way I have
just outlined.
In Dumont’s theory, then, I think we can treat value as a process that
applies to all aspects of a society and is worked out at the point of articulation
between ideology and social forms. My use of the term “articulation” here is
meant to denote both interconnection and vocalization, as Dumont’s theory of
social forms reveals – I am tempted to say, “announces” – ideology and vice
versa. This process is seen most clearly in the paramount value, which repre-
sents a fusion of ideology and social forms, or perhaps more precisely, social
forms as ideologically significant. Ideology here serves as a starting point, but
we could debate whether it is always necessary to start there; certainly, we
should question whether doing so requires us to privilege religion in the way
that Dumont does in his work on India. In any case, I hope I have made it clear
that once this process is in motion, the movement is always back and forth, as
ideas rank social forms, which, in turn, rank ideas.
I would like to suggest that this intersection, this passing back and forth
across a point of articulation, represents the great strength of Dumont’s theo-
ry. It is also the reason why I find Dumont to be particularly useful in examin-
ing contemporary African social life, to wit, when we animate his work in this
way and thus place a strong emphasis on process, we also introduce the pos-
sibility of failure. In other words, even though the organization of social forms
and ideas reflect each other, either or both of their ranking could be disrupted.
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 715 – 734, december, 2017
People may not always achieve the social form they value most; they may not
always prevent certain ideas from usurping others they consider to be more
important. This is true in part because of the internal variations always present
in the systems Dumont describes, as is clear, for example, in his work on what
he calls “marriage alliance” in South Asia (Dumont, 1983).
In addition, interference with the ranking of ideas and social forms may
stem from the fact that, as Marshall Sahlins puts it, “the whole is a part” (see
Sahlins, 2010). That is, while people have a model of how the elements of their
society ought to be ranked – what I refer to below as the “social ideal” – this
model is vulnerable to all sorts of forces emerging from outside their commu-
nity. Here we can include ideas or ideologies, such as Christianity or capitalism
in the modern West, as Dumont shows in his later work (Dumont 1977, 1986).
As my discussion of the Zambian Copperbelt will show, disruption of the social
ideal may also be a result of external forces that act on the other side of our
model – that is, that challenge the structure of the social form that people
consider to be most important.
article | naomi haynes
719
This potential for failure in turn necessitates all sorts of social, as well
as ideological, work – what Achille Mbembe, in a discussion that turns our at-
tention back to contemporary Africa, calls “the labor involved in making life
possible” (Shipley, 2010: 659). More broadly, then, what this article represents
is an analysis of people’s efforts to produce a particular kind of social outcome.
In this way, my discussion fits within what Joel Robbins (2013) has recently
referred to as “the anthropology of the good,” that is, an anthropology of how
people work to create what they understand to be a moral, or right, or desirable
social world. In urban Zambia, this process is bound up with social asymmetry,
indeed, hierarchy, which is the topic we turn to now.
720
believers he observed flocked to pastors known for their spiritual gifts, espe-
cially prophecy and exorcism. It is these religious services, he argues, and not
the promise of social ties with fellow believers that bring people into Accra’s
many Pentecostal churches. As Gifford puts it, in these congregations “the links
are all vertically towards the prophet, rather than horizontally between follow-
ers (Gifford, 2004: 108).” I found a similar pattern in Pentecostal churches in
Nsofu. Like most neighborhoods in urban Zambia, Nsofu is home to dozens of
churches, most of which are locally-initiated Pentecostal congregations with
fewer than 100 members. When asked where they go to church (Mupepa kwi?,
literally, “Where do you pray?”), many Pentecostal believers would respond the
way I expected them to, that is, by giving the name of one of these churches:
Higher Calling, Bethlehem Pentecostal, Power and Glory, and so on. However, I
found that a significant minority would answer this question not with the name
of a group, but rather with the name of a pastor, for example, “I pray with Pas-
tor Phiri” (na/kuli Pastor Phiri).
article | naomi haynes
721
722
All the same, they could not abide congregations where the prosperity gospel
occupied a central position.
My informant’s wariness regarding the prosperity gospel puts it in ten-
sion with the charisma we have already seen to be the primary factor in religious
participation in the Copperbelt. That these two ideas exist in opposition is
evident in the expectations believers had of their religious leaders. On the one
hand, Pentecostals thought it appropriate for pastors to display markers of
material wealth: dressing smartly, carrying thick leather-bound Bibles, and
wielding high-tech mobile phones. In keeping with this expectation, leaders
known for their charismatic gifts would sometimes also hold themselves up as
examples of prosperity. Pastor Ephraim, for instance, was never seen in anything
other than a crisp shirt and tie, and almost always wore a suit as well. Addition-
ally, in his sermons he would refer to purchases of new clothing or prestige
goods, including items bought at the Hotel Edinburgh, one of the fancier estab-
lishments in Kitwe.
article | naomi haynes
723
724
By itself, the prosperity gospel does not do much to improve this situa-
tion. Even if the attraction of a religious movement that promises wealth is
obvious, particularly as other mechanisms for economic advancement break
down, it should also be clear that the prosperity gospel does little to repair the
damage wreaked by the economic crisis on the economic hierarchy. All the
prosperity gospel can do is attempt to produce the same structure via super-
natural, rather than market, means (cf. Comaroff & Comaroff, 1999). In contrast
to prosperity, charisma has the distinct advantage of producing hierarchies
that do not depend on the market, but are instead a result of ritual life and the
mysterious work of the Holy Spirit (Haynes, 2015). On the Copperbelt, this means
that charismatic hierarchy appears to be much more stable than economic
hierarchy, be it the conventional or the prosperity gospel variety thereof. In
other words, when it comes to establishing hierarchy, charisma is better at it
than prosperity. Importantly, charismatic hierarchy also offers analogues of
dependence and moving, in this case worked out in terms of religious assistance
and aspiration. The details of these ideas are discussed elsewhere (see Haynes,
2017: 57-73), yet the example of leaders like Pastor Ephraim provide enough of
a sense of religious dependence.
My aim in highlighting the social importance of charismatic asymmetry
for Nsofu believers is to draw attention to the way that key social forms order
ideas. Again, these are the social forms that people value most and represent
local notions of a good society. In this case, the importance of hierarchy on the
Copperbelt means that that charisma, which makes better hierarchies than
prosperity, is the more highly ranked of the two ideas. The fact that hierarchy
structures the relative positions of charisma and prosperity among Copperbelt
Pentecostals does not, however, mean that believers are always successful in
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 715 – 734, december, 2017
keeping these ideas in what they would consider to be their proper order. Rath-
er, there are several points at which this process can and does break down, a
brief outline of a few of these is provided below.
One of the most serious threats to ranking charisma above prosperity is
found in the theological structure of the latter. As mentioned earlier, the central
tenet of the prosperity gospel is that Christians should be wealthy. The way
that followers of the prosperity gospel are supposed to access divine blessings
is through displays of faith – giving gifts, especially when they can’t afford to,
or telling family and friends that something they are hoping for will happen,
even if they cannot be sure that it will. God is then expected to act in keeping
with (ukulingana) a believer’s faith; in the words of the New Testament, “He who
sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, he who sows generously will also reap
generously” (2 Corinthians 9: 6). Great faith – that is, great spiritual strength – is
said to produce a great earthly reward. The troubling aspect of all of this for
Copperbelt Pentecostals is not difficult to see: in the framework of the prosper-
ity gospel, charisma and prosperity are one in the same thing. While, as we
article | naomi haynes
725
have seen, believers want charisma to rank higher than prosperity, the religious
mechanisms of the prosperity gospel continually undermine the ordering of
these ideas. In addition to these theological problems, Pentecostals are also
faced with the fact that church leaders rely on laypeople for economic support
and are therefore often forced to be rather strategic in the relationships they
form among ordinary believers (Haynes, 2015). I won’t go into the specifics of
this problem here, but suffice it to say that when the primary site of charis-
matic hierarchy, the tie between leaders and laypeople, is affected by econom-
ic concerns, it becomes very difficult for believers to tell whether their pastors
and co-parishioners have kept charisma in the right place relative to material
prosperity.
Faced with these problems, it is not surprising that when leaders demon-
strate only charisma without any emphasis on prosperity, they very quickly at-
tract a large following. In the case of a young prophet who rose to prominence
just before I left the field in 2009, the overwhelming presence of charisma in his
ministry made the group that gathered around him something of an island of
clarity in the ongoing conflict between charisma and prosperity. I first hear
of this prophet from several informants who had visited his meetings or, in
some cases, been given reports of his powerful ministry by their Pentecostal
friends. Those who had not yet gone to see him were anxious to do so, and when
a few informants planned a visit I jumped at the chance to tag along. We had
been told that because of the prophet’s popularity we should arrive very early at
the home where his followers met if we wanted to see him. This home was lo-
cated in a community a short distance from Nsofu, a township comprised of
dozens of identical white bungalows that had once been employee accommoda-
tion for the mine power company. While it might have been difficult to find one
house among so many that looked alike, we had no trouble locating our destina-
tion. From far up the street we could hear the unmistakable sound of Pentecostal
prayer as believers raised their voices in dozens of individual petitions. As we
drew closer we could see a number of women crowded at the windows and doors
of a house bursting at the seams; still others had found seats on the grass, their
heads shielded from the sun by spare citenge wrap skirts or blankets that a few
hours earlier had swaddled babies against the morning chill (Figure 1). Because
the prophet’s services were in such high demand, the believers who hosted the
meeting had devised a system to help ensure that all those who wished to meet
with him privately would be able to do so. A small box had been filled with card-
board squares, each marked with a number. Different days of the week were
allocated to each of the surrounding townships and on the designated day resi-
dents of those communities were invited to take a number and wait their turn
for individual consultations (Figure 2).
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 715 – 734, december, 2017
726
2
1
contemporary africa through the theory of louis dumont
article | naomi haynes
727
Despite his obvious popularity, the humility of this prophet was evident
in many ways. First, rather than employ a title such as Pastor, Prophet, or Evan-
gelist, a practice common among up-and-coming Pentecostal leaders, he was
instead known by the simple teknonym of Bashi Jethro. Where others would
have taken care to be smartly dressed in a suit or trendy jeans, Bashi Jethro
wore a T-shirt and loose trousers. Unlike other church leaders, who occasion-
ally received believers in their homes, Bashi Jethro preached in the sitting room
of a local widow. This suggested that his house was not large or well furnished
enough for him to receive guests, and that he was therefore dependent on oth-
ers’ wealth for his ministry. Despite these markers of humility and low mate-
rial status, the power Bashi Jethro displayed in casting out demons and, I was
told, in divining spiritual problems during private consultation, was unmistak-
able to believers. In other words, Bashi Jethro’s authority was one based on
charisma alone, without any accompanying markers of prosperity.
I mention Bashi Jethro here primarily to offer one final illustration of
the importance of charisma for Copperbelt Pentecostals. During my fieldwork,
leaders like Bashi Jethro would appear periodically and in a short time amass
a large following, which meant that every so often I would find myself with
others crowding into a sitting room with several dozen believers, all of them
hoping to meet with the new pastor individually. I would argue that the reason
figures like Bashi Jethro are so popular is because they represent pure charisma.
While leaders that represent prosperity alone are objects of scorn, those who
stand for pure charisma are revered by all believers. This, I think, is because
these charismatic figures perform a reorienting function: in the ongoing ten-
sion between charisma and prosperity, they offer a clear statement of which
idea is the more important (Robbins, 2015).
Although figures like Bashi Jethro appear on the Nsofu religious scene
from time to time, and their presence sheds further light on the relative im-
portance of charisma and prosperity on the Copperbelt, I must emphasize that
they are the exception, rather than the rule. Most pastors and believers are
trying to balance both charisma and prosperity. Moreover, I would argue that
the interplay between these two ideas is the hallmark of Pentecostalism in
urban Zambia. People have not abandoned prosperity completely, although, as
we will see, they have taken steps to reshape it. I think there are several reasons
for the ongoing influence of prosperity on the Copperbelt. For one thing, people
would like prosperity; more specifically, they would like the kind of prosperity
that would create a stable material hierarchy within which they could make
moving happen. It stands to reason, then, that if the prosperity gospel were
better at making good on its promises, believers would not worry so much about
keeping it subordinate to charisma. Together, the possibility that prosperity
could rank higher than charisma if it made better hierarchies and the fact that
this has not happened, point to the centrality, indeed, the ordering force, of
contemporary africa through the theory of louis dumont
728
hierarchy in urban Zambia. Thus, while people certainly want prosperity, this
is only true provided it does not come at the expense of the social forms they
consider to be most important. This, then, is what I have in mind when I say
that social forms structure, rank, and ultimately value ideas.
By showing that Pentecostals on the Copperbelt have an ideal model of
how social forms and ideas ought to relate to each other, I put forward an ap-
proach to this model through an analysis of each of these types of elements.
Finally, my analysis demonstrates that the process of bringing social life in line
with this model can break down. In closing, I would like to return briefly to the
issue of breakdown to respond to the reports of chaotic Africa with which I
opened my discussion.
729
730
NOTE
1 An earlier version of this paper was presented in the social
anthropolog y department seminar at the Universit y of
Edinburgh. Thanks to seminar participants, in particular
Jonathan Spencer, for their engagement with the paper.
Thanks also to Joel Robbins for his feedback on earlier
drafts. Any shor tcomings in the f inal version are ult i-
mately my ow n. My research has been f unded by t he
Wenner-Gren Foundation, a Fulbright-Hayes Doctoral Dis-
sertation Research Abroad grant, the British Academy, and
the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. Thanks
to these organizations for their invaluable support.
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 715 – 734, december, 2017
731
BIBLIOGRAPHY
732
733
734
INTRODUÇÃO
A intensificação recente do recurso ao pensamento de Louis Dumont em di-
versas searas antropológicas, exemplificada por outros textos componentes
deste volume, sugere a oportunidade e conveniência de um balanço sobre a
complexidade das vias pelas quais se disseminou sua herança nas últimas
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 735 – 772, dezembro, 2017
736
737
738
739
nha de interesse e polêmica precoces que nunca arrefeceram, mesmo que te-
nham assumido novos ares, novos focos e novas interlocuções.
740
delo em relação ao qual tal avaliação possa ser realizada” (Robbins, 2004: 292).
Por outro lado, a aplicabilidade da noção de “individualismo”, no sentido
estrito de Dumont, seria motivo de uma complexa discussão empreendida pelo
próprio Robbins (e por seus interlocutores) a respeito do estatuto da “mudança
cultural” em curso na sociedade Urapmin a partir de sua “conversão” a uma
versão do cristianismo. Essa discussão é muito marcada pela ênfase de Robbins
na “descontinuidade cultural”, por oposição ao que considera ser a tendência
dominante na antropologia: a de privilegiar a continuidade cultural subjacente
a todas as situações de mudança (cf. Robbins 2007b: 301). A ênfase na desconti-
nuidade emergente nas conversões ao cristianismo é a fonte mesma da possi-
bilidade de uma antropologia do cristianismo, distinta das descrições etnológi-
cas tipicamente autorreferidas e remetidas à tradição cultural local.
As propostas de Robbins enriqueceram sobremaneira um debate em curso
já há tempos sobre as condições do uso das categorias analíticas de Dumont apli-
cadas a sociedades de pequena escala, melanésias ou não. O próprio Dumont
privilegiou, em seus últimos anos de atividade, um círculo comprometido com
artigo | luiz fernando dias duarte
741
742
A VIA “INDIANISTA”
A obra de Dumont sobre a Índia foi uma pedra de toque de todos os desenvol-
vimentos da ciência social indiana desde a publicação do primeiro volume do
Contributions to Indian sociology, em 1956, uma iniciativa sua e de David Pocock.
A interpretação de uma “Índia das castas” aí defendida se contrapunha às aná-
lises de uma “Índia das aldeias” do principal sociólogo indiano, Mysore Nara-
simhachar Srinivas, tendo se desencadeado a partir daí uma fieira de polêmicas
que tenderam a perdurar nas novas gerações, ainda que com novos focos e
ênfases.
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 735 – 772, dezembro, 2017
Dumont não se preocupava com a Índia como nação, mas com o tipo de civilização
a ser contrastado com o Ocidente. Neste contexto, seu interesse recaía no sistema
de castas, que traz consigo princípios ideológicos diferentes, se não opostos, aos da
artigo | luiz fernando dias duarte
743
744
745
Porém mesmo nos casos de clara dominância, nenhum valor específico disporá de
todo o campo social para si. Por essa razão, o dinamismo é inerente à vida social. E
é porque muito desse dinamismo é conduzido por lutas entre valores, que as noções
de Dumont de oposição hierárquica, englobamento, e níveis são tão cruciais para nós
antropólogos quando tentamos produzir relatos etnográficos que refl itam adequada-
mente os processos sociais acionados por tal dinamismo (Robbins, 2015: 28).
746
Dumont (1986: 2) construiu o conceito de “fato social total” como “um complexo es-
pecífico de uma sociedade (ou tipo de sociedade) particular, que não podemos fazer
coincidir com nenhum outro.” Em outras palavras, isso corresponde primeiramente
a uma ênfase na diferença; os fatos reagem às categorias, teorias, e ideias implícitas
com as quais os abordamos. Trata-se de um experimento comparativo que envolve o
sujeito com seu objeto (ibid.: 199). E, em segundo lugar, o aspecto “total” do fato sig-
nifica que o objetivo não é o de estudar elementos em separado, mas o de comparar
‘totalidades’. “Como encontrar isso [i.e. a totalidade]? Em certo sentido, a sociedade
é a única ‘totalidade’, mas tão complexa que não importa quão escrupulosamente a
reconstruamos, sempre há dúvida quanto ao resultado. Porém, há casos [i.e. fatos so-
ciais totais] em que a consistência se encontra em complexos menos amplos, em que
a ‘totalidade’ pode ser mais facilmente mantida sob consideração” (ibid.: 194) (Iteanu
& Moya, 2015: 117; grifo no original).
747
Não estou, com isso, advogando que fujamos de toda noção de “todo”, como se essa
fosse uma categoria visceralmente antiamazônica, mas apenas que cuidemos para
não cair em uma falácia da totalidade mal-colocada. Qualquer cosmologia é, por defi-
nição, total, no sentido de que não pode não pensar tudo o que há, e pensá-lo − a esse
tudo que não é um todo, ou a esse todo que não é uno − segundo um número finito de
pressupostos. Mas daí não se segue que toda cosmologia pensa tudo o que há sob a
categoria da totalidade, isto é, que ponha um Todo como o “correlato objetivo” de sua
própria exaustividade virtual (Viveiros de Castro, 2001: 22).
748
749
designação, por meio dessa categoria, das grandes transformações que carac-
terizaram a emergência da pessoa ocidental moderna, com o frequente coro-
lário de oposição à “sociedade” ou à coletividade, e a contínua promessa de
autonomia e emancipação contraposta à concomitante e constante ameaça de
fragmentação dos vínculos coletivos. Com graus muito diversos de sofisticação
analítica e de compromisso com as evidências empíricas, trata-se essencial-
mente de modelos descritivos empiristas e funcionalistas, seja no registro so-
ciológico, seja no registro histórico. Sem pretensão de exaustividade, podem
ser nomeados François de Singly (com inspiração na obra de Alain Renaut e em
sua distinção entre “independência” e “autonomia” dos “indivíduos”), Charles
Taylor, Raymond Williams, Anthony Giddens, Zigmunt Baumann, Stephen Lukes,
Ulrich Beck (e sua teoria da individualização na “segunda modernidade”), Robert
Bellah, Marcel Gauchet, Ernest Gellner, Crawford B. Macpherson (o proponente
da prestigiosa teoria histórica do “possessive individualism”) ou Alan Macfarlane
(que critica Dumont, do ponto de vista historiográfico, em 1992). Os recentes
trabalhos sobre a “individualização” na China, da lavra de Yunxiang Yan (2009,
2010), seguem sobretudo as propostas funcionalistas de Giddens e de Beck, sem
qualquer menção a Dumont.
A proposta mais restritiva de acepção da noção de “individualismo” cons-
truída por Dumont inspirou numerosos trabalhos voltados para a compreensão
de sociedades ou de grupos específicos dentro das sociedades modernas, em-
bora esse filão tenha enfrentado eventuais restrições ao modo como se afirmou,
por ensejar acusações de reificação tipologizante. 26
Roberto DaMatta (1979), por exemplo, utilizou intensamente o pensa-
mento de Dumont na guinada que caracterizou sua obra a partir de Carnavais,
malandros e heróis, passando dos estudos etnológicos para a interpretação da
sociedade nacional brasileira, em contraste sobretudo com a sociedade esta-
dunidense. Seu uso das categorias “ideologia do individualismo” e “indivíduo”
foi bastante idiossincrático. Em seu trabalho, “indivíduo” é tanto o portador da
“ideologia do individualismo” (característico das sociedades efetivamente “mo-
dernas”) quanto o sujeito social desprovido dos atributos de uma “pessoa” ple-
na, característico do “povo” das sociedades “semitradicionais”. DaMatta (1983:
31) caracterizou a sociedade brasileira por um dilema entre o “individualismo”
e o que chamou de “personalismo”. Este último, equivalente à “hierarquia”,
seria o núcleo da ideologia “relacional” da formação nacional brasileira, carac-
terístico do “mundo da casa”, enquanto o individualismo estaria cantonado no
“mundo da rua”, lugar da desordem carnavalesca − “é assim que, no universo
da casa, todos são pessoas, mas no mundo da rua, todos são, em princípio, in-
divíduos” (DaMatta, 1983: 42). O mundo da ordem jurídico-política impessoal
seria caracterizado por ele como “hierárquico”, num sentido, portanto, mais
próximo do senso comum de “diferenciação social” ou “dominação”, do que do
sentido dumontiano de distribuição diferencial de valor. A presença da ideolo-
o valor dos valores: louis dumont na antropologia contemporânea
750
751
752
753
O método de Dumont assume que nenhum valor único pode ser plenamente hegemô-
nico: um valor primordial sempre coexiste com os outros valores que o contradizem.
Mesmo o individualismo sempre se combina com valores holísticos que o contradi-
zem de um modo ou de outro (Dumont 1983: 17-19, 1991: 32-56) (adaptação minha das
referências bibliográficas internas).
754
***
A apresentação, por sumária que possa ser neste contexto, dos tão ricos
fios da tradição dumontiana visa sobretudo tentar dispersar os estereótipos
fáceis que se acumularam a respeito de uma teoria tão desafiadora, orientando
os novos leitores para uma disposição de conhecimento e debate de uma he-
artigo | luiz fernando dias duarte
755
756
NOTAS
1 Entre as numerosas apreciações críticas (excetuadas as
indianas, de que trataremos depois) talvez sejam consi-
deradas mais “clássicas” as de F. G. Bailey (1959, apud Pei-
rano, 1991b: 213 – primeira a ser formulada contra o arti-
go original de Dumont & Pocock na Contributions to Indian
Sociology, também de 1959); de MacKim Marriott (com sua
proposta dos “divíduos” na Índia, 1969 e 1976); de Gerald
Berreman (1971); de André Béteille (1986); de Rodney Ne-
edham (contra a noção de hierarquia – 1987); de Alan Ma-
cfarlane (1992 – sobre a histór ia do indiv idualismo). É
peculiar a cr ítica de Lardinois (1995), que explora a in-
f luência juvenil do metafísico René Guénon no destino
intelectual de Dumont; o que deve ser considerado uma
característica muito significativa, mais do que um vício.
2 Revisões mais gerais podem ser encontradas em Galey,
1982, 1984, 1991; Berthoud & Busino, 1984; Duarte 1986a,
2015a; Parkin, 1994, 2003; Toffin, 1999; Stolcke, 2001; Leir-
ner, 2003; Strenski, 2014; entre muitas outras.
3 Todas as citações foram traduzidas para o português [N. E.].
4 Em determinado ponto da entrevista publicada neste nú-
mero de Sociologia & Antropologia, Robbins oferece um qua-
dro informativo precioso do campo em que a antropologia
do cristianismo e o pensamento de Dumont se entrecru-
zam. Naomi Haynes, autora de outro artigo deste volume,
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 735 – 772, dezembro, 2017
757
758
759
760
leira. Como diz DaMatta (2000: 21; itálico meu), seria ne-
cessário: “acentuar uma oposição bem marcada entre a
individualidade, que v ivencia e conceitualiza o colet ivo
como complementar, e o individualismo, que vivencia o afas-
tamento do grupo como um movimento marcado por in-
terioridade e subjetividade”.
29 A dificuldade de acesso aos artigos muito esparsos de Ara-
gão virá a ser superada com a publicação de uma coletânea
organizada por Luis Eduardo Abreu, para a qual escrevi
um prefácio (Duarte, no prelo).
30 Nesses primeiros anos da década de 1980, outros três im-
portantes antropólogos brasileiros se ocuparam do pen-
samento de Dumont em trabalhos específicos. Luís Rober-
to Cardoso de Oliveira (1984) comparou minuciosamente
as leituras da Índia feitas por Max Weber e Dumont; Otá-
artigo | luiz fernando dias duarte
761
762
REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS
763
764
765
766
767
768
5/3, p. 215-233.
769
770
771
772
INTRODUCTION
In his essay, The corrosion of character: the personal consequences of work in the new
capitalism, Sennett (2009) begins his discussion by talking about his meeting at
an airport with Rico, the son of Enrico, whom he had interviewed 25 years
earlier. The conversation takes place over the course of a flight, during which
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 773 – 797, december, 2017
Rico goes on about his life and how mobile he is compared to his father. Based
on this, the author compares the linear biography of Rico’s father – a general
service worker who cleans buildings, and has enjoyed successive achievements,
like purchasing a house, building up savings, and talks about the role of unions
in protecting jobs and the forecast for his retirement – with that of his son,
characterized by social mobility: a university education, a career that started
as a consultant in an investment bank, then moved to the computer industry
in Silicon Valley, and then to a company in Chicago; affected by the uncer-
tainty in the new economy, he was let go from that company and moved to New
York, where he opened a small consulting firm. Rejecting his father’s conform-
ism, Rico’s discourse about change and risk in his non-linear life story never-
theless reveals his own insecurity, lack of outlook and meaning in his profes-
sional career. Two generations, two different historical contexts: Fordist and
post-Fordist work, the new flexible capitalism.
In another story, Canadian filmmaker Denys Arcand, in his film The bar-
barian invasions (2003), which was the continuation of his previous work, The
youth and the new culture of work: considerations drawn from digital work
774
775
776
“height” of capitalist modernity. We all wish we were young. The growth of mass
consumption and the media contribute to this “juvenilizing” by reinforcing
youth as a lifestyle that does not pertain to any particular generation, but rath-
er to a process that has been underway since the 1950s with the growing prom-
inence of youth that peaked with the “cultural revolution” in the decade that
followed.
The fact that a group of people are born at the same time does not nec-
essarily mean that their behavior will be similar, even though they may have
shared experiences or witnessed the same facts (Mannheim, 1993). In other
words, what is sociological cannot be deduced from what is biological. What
constitutes a generation is not shared content, but rather how the content is
appropriated and enables the shaping of a collective (Motta & Weller, 2010). Just
like other stages in life, youth is a social, historical, and cultural construct,
which therefore has differentiated functions, representations, and meanings
in each period (Bourdieu, 1983; Peralva, 1997; Ravasco & Mancebo, 2010).
For example, the use of the concept of the generation disconnected from
its historical-political-cultural context, the idea of a “youth,” in the singular,
gives importance to crystalizing and essentialist elements and draws attention
to certain traits that would be common in “youth.” Consequently, “youths” or
“youth cultures,” plural, stress “discriminatory factors that trigger internal divi-
sions within this generational universe” and contribute to a plural and diverse
view of youth (Pais, 2005: 111). 6
Diogenes’s (2009) perspective on this is that youth (or youths) would
represent social segments that define themselves more by their practices and
ways of acting and experimenting than by set and stable concepts and refer-
ences. This makes it difficult to represent youth cultures, since they are char-
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 773 – 797, december, 2017
acterized precisely by their plural and mobile meanings and are not, therefore,
merely a transitional stage.
Whereas institutions in a broad sense, like Government, family and
school understand youth as the passage from one stage of life to another, a
“transformation” for young people themselves, “their existence and action in
the world is anchored in the present” (Reguillo, 2007: 52). This did not go un-
noticed by the market, which is very competent at exploiting this “group,” a
major consumer; several product lines are aimed at this market or at the life-
style represented by this “youth.”
Nowadays, young people live in a social order marked by mobility, risk,
insecurity, and uncertainty. Their biographies are traced by the process of dein-
stitutionalizing the course of life (Leccardi, 2005), just as Sennet (2009) discussed
in Rico’s path. From this point of view, we can say that the concept of youth as
a transition for adult life engenders a crisis since the path of life is no longer
predictable, palpable, or defined. Given the flexibility of markets and labor re-
lations, young people are no longer certain that their formal training is a guar-
article | jacob carlos lima and aline suelen pires
777
antee for entering the labor market, or for having a career, or any stability that
would enable them to plan their futures (Pais, 2005; Sennett, 2009).
Considering the increasingly fast pace at which technological innova-
tions emerge and that computerization takes on a fundamental role in social
life in general, the work of the youngest people has started to be appreciated
for the fact that they can potentially be molded to the demands of productiv-
ity and, in theory, be more open to creativity and innovation, in addition to
being flexible and mobile (in terms of space, time and work positions), which
have become the new mantra of contemporary capitalism. Young people take
on a core role in the spheres of consumption, development of digital technolo-
gies, and cultural production (Canclini, 2012).
Not all young people, however, manage to engage in socially-valued ac-
tivities marked by creativity and innovation. Most youth dedicate themselves
to unstable and little valued jobs. Therefore, we can say that there are at least
two youths in relation to work: a majority who are made to be insecure and
excluded not just from the information-based society, but also from access to
institutions and social rights, who survive on the borderline that separates the
legal from the illegal and illicit, and the other group, the minority, who are
inserted into the avatars of digital society and have access to rights and mem-
bership in society (Reguillo, 2010: 432).
On the one hand, there would be youth who create trends, who are bet-
ter informed, connected, and integrated into the labor market, the trendsetters
(Pozo, 2012). They would also resemble the notion of “yes-yes” youth given that
they appear at the center of the idealization of contemporary youth in terms
of broad access to education and multiple possibilities for time-space mobility,
as well as flexibility in dealing with ways of working and employment contracts.
In contrast, there would be the “neither-nor” youth who neither study nor work
(Cardoso, 2013), have fewer social and cultural assets and end up relegated to
quite a different condition. There is no possible future for these young people,
just an uninspired, immediate and often brief present (Leccredi, 2005).
The emphasis on promoting youth in society and in the contemporary
work world is commonly referred to as “generation Y” in the literature on man-
agement focused on business and human resources and in the media in gen-
eral. The academic debate on generation is thus replaced by the dominant notion
of common sense regarding age intervals, usually from 15 to 30 years each, which
makes it possible to attribute a series of characteristics to people of the same
age bracket. In this context, the increase in the population’s life expectancy
would lead to the coexistence of four or five different generations and at least
three of them would share the same work spaces (Lancaster & Stillman, 2011).
The oldest of these is the traditional, or “Belle Époque,” generation, which
would be made up of people born between the 1920s and the mid-1940s, who
are characterized by their appreciation for honor and respect, and who would
youth and the new culture of work: considerations drawn from digital work
778
tend to remain in the same job over a long period. This generation would be
followed by the baby-boomers, who were born between the end of the Second
World War and the early 1960s – in the midst of the prosperity of the reconstruc-
tion of the main countries involved in the conflict and the developmental
policies of the countries on the periphery – and were defined by their respect
for family values, discipline in school and work, and by obedience, and reflect
the height of the Fordist era. The next generation, X, would be made up of those
born between the mid-1960s and the end of the 70s, and their fundamental
characteristics would be skepticism, pragmatism, and an appreciation for work
(Oliveira, 2010; Loyola, 2009). Generation Y would be between generation X and
that which has been called “Z.” The latter would be made up of young people
born since the end of the 1990s, the “digital natives,” who are even more inti-
mately connected with information technology than the previous generation.
The young people who would make up generation Y would be those who
were born approximately between 1978 and 1999, and are characterized as be-
ing significantly different from the youth of previous generations. They are
being prepared for jobs that have yet to be created, using technologies that
have not been invented, and solving problems that are still to be defined. The
young people of this generation would have the ability to deal with different
technologies and learn new things, skilled at multitasking, curious and moti-
vated by challenges. They would have acquired such attributes because they
grew up in a context that severed ties with the idea of the traditional family
and was in touch with many technological conveniences and virtual tools, such
as paid and interactive TV, videogames, cellphones, computers, and, mainly,
the internet (Loyola, 2009; Oliveira, 2010; Oliveira, Piccinini & Bittencourt, 2012;
Cavazotte, Lemos & Viana, 2012; Lemos, 2012). This concept of “generation Y”
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 773 – 797, december, 2017
fits in perfectly with the business discourse when considering the productive
and economic restructuring of the 1980s and 90s, the flexibility of markets and
the re-establishment of work relations.
The notion of “flexibility” at work involves several dimensions. It is re-
lated not only to the ways we hire outside the traditional order of salaries, but
also to the workday, the diversification of activities and roles, mastery of dif-
ferent types of knowledge and “creativity.” Autonomy and the ways control is
exerted on work tend to be decreasingly less regulated by direct surveillance
and start to be more related to goals and results, which is made possible by
technology and the greater responsibility of the worker.
In accepting that youth from generations Y and Z are flexible, mobile,
detached, and can seamlessly deal with new technologies, motivated by chal-
lenges, among other “qualities,” they would represent everything that the flex-
ible company seeks. Consequently, spreading the idea of generations integrates
and strengthens the ideological discourse of the new capitalism that aims at
justifying and solidifying the insertion of youth in the unstable work market,
article | jacob carlos lima and aline suelen pires
779
I have been in touch with computers ever since I was a child and I already felt
that there was something in this field that I wanted. Based on that I started, like
youth and the new culture of work: considerations drawn from digital work
780
any child who uses computers a lot, to play a lot of games and these games
brought me to the world of programming. I started making small programs for
the game itself, and I really liked it (Thiago, 27, systems analyst).
gies, equipment and software are discovered, incorporated, and become obso-
lete. Although software does not “grow old” in the sense of wear and tear, giv-
en its “immaterial” nature, it does stop working with changes to hardware, i.e.,
with machines that do not “run” it and new software that incorporates and
innovates its features and languages, adjusting itself to the specific types of
businesses for which they are destined.
The new demands are not lost on IT workers who point out that the main
attribute for staying in the field is the willingness to learn, to constantly update,
that is, to be constantly studying:
It is a profession where you can never stop studying. [...] It is a field that chang-
es constantly. [...] If you say “ah, I will study this here, I will learn, and I want to
keep working in this field the rest of my life by just acquiring experience,” then
no, the technolog y sector is not where you should work. In the technolog y field,
experience is very important... but if you do not have the initiative to continue
learning as you acquire your experience, you will die ver y quickly (Eric, 37, IT
consultant).
article | jacob carlos lima and aline suelen pires
781
Each project demands different skills and knowledge that differ from
one to the next and if professionals are not interested in learning, then they
will quickly become “obsolete.” Thus, when Guido (29, risk model analyst) said
that in this field you must have a “tireless profile,” he summarized quite well
what not getting comfortable, wanting to improve, always be innovating, being
in motion, and never stop training means.
The ways of obtaining knowledge and information, staying up to date,
are quite varied and go beyond the classroom. The means used for updating
are made available on the internet. Workers tend to use social networks (espe-
cially groups on Facebook), blogs, forums, tutorials, YouTube channels, digital
books, materials that companies make available to their employees, online
courses and the news, in addition to others available on websites, like the main
sources of information and updating. The training programs seem to be more
perishable than in other fields and professionals note that they “age” very
early, since there is this idea that keeping up with the speed of changes and
the news in the field, a requirement in this career, is something for younger
people.
Eric, 37, says that he “used to be young,” that he is already quite mature
or old for this career. In his opinion, youth is related to the never-ending abil-
ity to learn, innovate, to “think that nothing is impossible,” whereas the older
ones tend to resist more and are less willing to keep up with changes. In this
sense, ageing has nothing to do with the physical ability to stay in the business,
but rather with the “willingness” to do so, where youth have the “energy” for
doing so.
Likewise, Bernardo, 28, already acknowledges differences between he
and younger workers, especially as they relate to the ability to think logically:
In our field of development, we work a lot with logic and logic demands a lot of
your reasoning, you must really think. Even we who are twenty-eight, thirty, we
already notice a greater challenge than we did when we were young for thinking
and having logical reasoning (Bernardo, 28 years, analyst developer).
Even when they claim that age is not an issue, they point out that it is
necessary to have an “innovative profile,” the ability to adapt to new situations
and be mobile. Moreover, their family responsibilities would be smaller:
because the young person is more willing to constantly change, get to know new
things. Older people already have lots of experience and are more set in their
ways, want a quieter and stable lifestyle for family and all the rest; they do not
want to be travelling every day and week... (Cristiano, 26, IT consultant).
In fact, it is a job for people who are updated. They can be young or old, but if
they do not keep up with the latest, they fall outside the IT sector. [...] But they
[the older people] are a bit more resistant to the latest trends. [...] They end up
thinking that what they learned over the course of their careers is correct and
that there is no way to change (Thiago, 27, systems analyst).
youth and the new culture of work: considerations drawn from digital work
782
The older the you are, the more you must be made to stay with the team. That
is funny: the older, the grumpier people get. So, where a young person sees mil-
lions of possibilities, the older one sees millions of problems. [...] In terms of
communication we also have a bit of a problem, the older person does not always
speak up if there is a problem at home, whereas the younger one does, “hey, I
was up playing videogames until late last night and I am wasted” (Thales, 28).
Besides reinforcing this idea that maturity, establishing a family and the
accumulation of responsibilities that come with it interfere in one’s ability to
keep up with the latest in one’s career, what Thales’s brings up adds other ele-
ments. Firstly, the relationship between youth and technology. Secondly, the
resistance of older people, infected with the prejudice that they keep getting
“grumpier” and set up obstacles to developing business, in contrast to young
people who see possibilities in problems and challenges that show up in daily
work. Thirdly, Thales discusses the issue of communication, and makes it clear
that the young person is more transparent, which would thus facilitate his work
coordinating the team.
Paying attention to what has already been learned and avoiding the new
would be characteristics of older professionals, according to the workers. Con-
sidering this, Sennett (2006: 92) says that the older workers are better “masters
of themselves” and critical. They judge the training offered in training courses
and thus “the experienced worker complicates the meaning of what he is learn-
ing and evaluates it according to his past.”
The relationship between age and work raises the issue of experience.
If aging is a problem mostly for occupations, then acquiring experience, which
comes with age, would be the positive side of this process. Thus, if older people
are no longer as agile and mobile as the young, then they would have work
experience that the youngest have yet to acquire, which would thus represent
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 773 – 797, december, 2017
783
I always think it is important to merge teams because those who have been in
the labor market longer will share their experience and maturity with the young-
er people who are entering, who at times do not have much experience regarding
poise at work, and that issue related to anxiety, too. [...] and even so that the
most stable ones, the older people in the labor market, do not get too comfort-
able, either (Paula, 34).
784
ated with the ability to solve problems, or to “think outside the box”:
We basically work with problems. [...] You are there to think outside the box, you
have to bring an innovation, a great solution. Therefore, you are always being
forced to propose this solution. Moreover, the demand for this is nonstop, crea-
tivity, the ability to deal with complicated situations (Leonardo, 28).
In our field mathematics is very important, but mathematics provides you with
a resource, so what you do with this resource is up to your creativity. Program-
ming lang uages restr ict creativ it y because they impose standards. However,
there are countless languages, many ways of making them communicate with
each other, and that is where creativity comes into play. [...] Creativity can be
found on both levels, as much in developing the product that was conceived as
an idea, as in the concept of the product (Thales, 28).
Furthermore, this sector also needs repetitive and routine, and, therefore,
less creative activities:
article | jacob carlos lima and aline suelen pires
785
It is a very broad field, so it depends a lot on where you end up to be able to say
whether you will develop that creativity or not. Depending on the type of job, we
joke that we could be substituted by a monkey, you just click on one button like
this and... I am at a place that is right in the middle: I am not limited to pressing
buttons all the time, but the creativity in itself is quite difficult because your
task is very specific (Laila, 25).
The position was called systems monitor. It was as if I were a support, an inter-
national call center. I had the company’s mainframes and those of other com-
panies, and I was working remotely here in Brazil as I monitored their operations.
If they fell, if there were some problem, it would appear on my screen, I would
call the technical supervisors, the administrators, everything was done remote-
ly, in India, the United States, Europe (Cristiano, 26)
786
sionals seek to draw a distinction between the work done in software factories
and other programming activities that would involve greater autonomy, initia-
tive, and creativity, what they call software boutiques; in contrast to the “fac-
tory,” the “boutique,” at least on the level of ideals, would involve work that is
much more creative, artistic, and personalized.
Despite the rapid changes and all the uncertainties that surround the
work world, in general, and the IT sector, in particular, workers still desire a
stable future, at least in the long term. Regarding ways of contracting, most of
the workers interviewed prefer contracts subject to the Consolidated Labor
Laws, mainly because of the benefits that go with being a salaried worker and
because this type of contract is financially worthwhile. This, however, goes
against the grain of flexibility and mobility, which belong to a sector character-
ized by innovation. The unique traits of the Brazilian IT sector must also be
taken into consideration, a sector in which 70% of employees have formal con-
tracts (Softex, 2012). This situation stands in contrast to that of countries like
the United States, England, and Argentina, yet resembles other European coun-
tries whose labor relations are more regulated (Miguez & Lima, 2016; Mayer-
Ahujaa & Wolf, 2007; Bergvall-Kåreborn & Howcroft, 2013). The growing demand
for these professionals in the labor market over the past 13 years must also be
considered as it placed them in the relatively comfortable situation of being
able to choose the type of contract they wanted, even though salaries did not
always keep up with surge in demand.
These young people were born and brought up in a world that is “lique-
fied” (Bauman, 2001), or rather, where short-lived relationships, the present,
and the now prevail. Accordingly, it is to be expected that youth are increas-
ingly removed from an ideal of job security and stability, a standard of life and
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 773 – 797, december, 2017
work that marked previous generations and are more accustomed and adapted
to flexible contracts. Yet, that is not what occurs. Even though they manage to
see the positive aspects of flexible contracts, they seek to cling onto what (sup-
posed) stability or security remains in formal work and do not stop making
long-term plans. Although there are features in flexible contracts that are ap-
pealing when young people entering the labor market, contracts considered to
be more “stable” tend to gain favor as the years go by and this group has more
responsibilities.
Additionally, some workers who intend on staying in the field can envi-
sion the possibility of still working at their current company ten years from now,
especially those who are at larger companies that offer career opportunities.
Others who work in smaller companies and/or in smaller cities aim at finding
opportunities in larger companies and/or in the state capital and even abroad,
even though there are those who do not consider working and living in a big city.
There are also those who plan to open their own companies once they have a
good idea worth trying in the market and a certain security in that decision-
article | jacob carlos lima and aline suelen pires
787
making. However, not everyone foresees themselves in this sector until retire-
ment. In other words, the outlook is mixed, yet the high turnover in the sector
signals a permanent search for the best labor conditions possible (Softex, 2012).
Leonardo’s account highlights the importance of stability since he in-
tends to forge a career in a solid company or open his own as soon as he figures
out how to:
At first my idea is to stay in a company where I can have stability. I have thought
about opening my own company, but not so much these days. Occasionally you
get that idea and think “this is worth investing in,” so ever ything depends on
that gut feeling, a lot of feeling, that does not work (Leonardo, 28, IT consultant).
I think that in fact, it is a kind of occupational hazard. So, I had a lot of stress, a lot
of conf lict, working was stressful... managers who do not see the human aspect very
much. So, they just see the deadline, or they only see the resources, they treat you like
a resource. [...] Abusive deadlines, extremely aggressive deadlines and with nobody
to work, and you are being forced to meet it [...] being made responsible for many
things that were not really mine... it is extremely irritating and off-putting (Ber-
nardo, 28, development analyst).
788
I began to get a lot of gastritis and the doctor’s diagnosis was that it was most likely
nervous and related to stress from my job. Then I started having a lot of sentimental
problems, in fact. I started to get depressed, rather irritated and it was indeed a result
of my work environment (Thiago, 27).
article | jacob carlos lima and aline suelen pires
789
790
The workers we studied, the “yes-yes” type from the digital sector, are
expected to be self-entrepreneurs, in a sense that is similar to informal work-
ers whose insecurity is glamorized by the “creative” nature of their work. In
the Brazilian case, they still enjoy a certain favorable market situation that is
marked by regular employment, which does not mean they are stable. Their
instability, however, is justified by the never-ending search for new challenges
through a range of possibilities in which good compensation would be accom-
panied by greater production and greater pleasure in the work performed
(Almeida & Eugênio, 2011: 14).
However, if it is rare to achieve suitability to a standard of discourse that
unites pleasure and accomplishment (work-creativity-innovation), then the suit-
ability regulates behaviors. Yet this does not mean blind adherence to the domi-
nant business discourse. The “yes-yes” youth from the digital sector want to be
flexible, yet they want stability; they want to be creative, yet they want labor
conditions that make this possible.
There is a widespread perception among these workers that this field is
stressful and leads to elevated levels of anxiety. This results from not only the
assimilated control, but also from the pressure of deadlines that are an outcome
of project-based work and the client’s control on work, which complements the
job of the supervisor and the technology itself, which also acts upon this control.
Thus, we have the prolonged workday for handling deadlines, the blurring of the
lines that separate the workplace from the space for private life through perma-
nent access to the internet, which enables us to continue working at home, in a
café, or in any other space, which reduces our free time. The tradeoff for a certain
autonomy and creativity gained in the working process is the intensification of
this process, which has implications on the workers’ health and personal life.
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 773 – 797, december, 2017
The great mobility in employment and the high level of turnover for
these workers could be possible sources of resistance in the absence of a col-
lective reference for this category. The fragmentation of the sector, its diver-
sity and the traits of the work make labor union organizing weak and unrep-
resentative. This does not mean that the workers are uninformed about their
rights. Social networks make information available about jobs, income brackets
and other data concerning the job market.
Even when working conditions are considered to be inadequate, the
workers do not mention the absence of contracts governed by the Consoli-
dated Labor Laws, or social rights. Most workers have formal contracts, but their
insecurity is present daily, given the project-based work, the pressure to meet
deadlines, the uncertain length of workdays, work’s “colonization” of life by
means of permanent work, which is not always seen as such. And finally, the
perception of temporality in a new occupation, which is constantly changing
as a result of the constant outdating of knowledge and skills and the fear of
losing innovative energy that would mark youth.
article | jacob carlos lima and aline suelen pires
791
792
NOTES
1 In Lima (2010 ) the concept of the culture of work is ad-
dressed by comparing expressions of capitalist culture,
businesses, employment, and class, which converge to a
certain extent on the incorporation of values, norms and
customs that arise from the capitalist changes that start-
ed in 1970s.
2 We use IT “sector” and “field” as synonyms given that that
is the workers’ common usage.
3 We use the ter ms “workers” and “professionals” inter-
changeably; even consider ing that in the f ield there is
trend toward specific training, the matter of what consti-
tutes a career is still fuzzy.
4 We do not use the ILO’s definition of teleworking, since it
is too broad when considering the work performed in dif-
ferent spaces using information technologies. This defini-
tion includes workers in home off ices (who work from
home) and call centers, whose activities tend to be highly
standardized and in many cases resemble industrial work
(Antunes & Braga, 2009).
5 Research funded by FAPESP and CNPq.
6 This discussion can also be found in Guimarães (2005).
7 The work of customs data entry personnel involves input-
ting data into databases, access to logs in the systems,
issuing information, documents, invoices, among others
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 773 – 797, december, 2017
BIBLIOGRAPHY
793
794
795
796
Films
Denys Arcand (direction and screenplay). (2003). The bar-
barian invasions . Distribution in Brazil: Miramax Films/Art
Films
Denys Arcand (direction and screenplay). (1986). The decline
of the American empire . Canada: Malofilm/Corporation Im-
age M & M/National Film Board of Canada/Téléfilm Cana-
da/Société Général du Cinéma du Québec/Société Radio
Cinema. Distribution in Brazil: Cineplex-Odeon Films/Art
Films.
article | jacob carlos lima and aline suelen pires
797
800
tions between the game, the mass media and advertising narratives (Sodré,
1977; Gastaldo, 2002; Amaro, Helal, 2014; Helal et al., 2014).
Our work here adopts a different approach since it focuses especially on
the approximation between football and consumption from the viewpoint of
understanding how, in the first half of the twentieth century, these two phe-
nomena established a model of articulation through the advertising industry’s
recruitment of outstanding footballers, a process that saw the transformation
of these players from the ‘football world’ into stars of the ‘world of goods.’ In
this sense, the model first developed with Leônidas is emblematic since his
fame and prestige, the idolization that he provoked and his heroism, continu-
ally and incisively expressed in the media, provide an insight into this experi-
ence of constructing sports celebrities capable of mobilizing crowds and selling
all kinds of products and services, including the persistence of this same mod-
el today within much the same logical parameters.
To deepen the discussion on the articulations between football and con-
sumption through the example of Leônidas, this article is divided into three
article | everardo rocha and william corbo
801
parts. In the first our idea is to explore some of the pivotal moments in the
player’s career and his consecration as Brazilian soccer’s biggest name and idol
in the first half of the twentieth century. In the second part we debate the role
of the sports press and the media in general in the construction of Leônidas’s
public image as a national hero and a representative of core elements of Brazil-
ian culture. Finally, we turn our attention to analysing how the football star
was transformed into a celebrity able to attract huge crowds, heavily influenc-
ing the social life of his time and working actively in the advertising market to
promote stores and sell products like cigarettes, watches and chocolate.
As a cultural and collective phenomenon wrapped in symbolism, con-
sumption gives meaning to social life and provides the codes that enable us to
comprehend and act in the world in which we live (Douglas & Isherwood, 2004).
Football, as a social drama (DaMatta, 1982), produces – along with its draws,
wins and defeats – narratives and myths capable of elaborating images of idols
and legendary heroes that fill the pages of the sports press and the media in
general. This article reveals some of the fundamental aspects of the emergence
of a model of articulation between consumption and football that has informed
purchasing practices and relations with the game to the present day. A detailed
look at the history of football in Brazil reveals how, even in the first decades of
the sports professionalization, the country’s players appeared frequently in
articles, special reports and interviews in newspapers and magazines and on
the radio. The football stars of the 1930s and 1940s generated huge amounts of
public interest. Idolized wherever they went, they drew large crowds and became
celebrities with a strong popular appeal. Despite being a black footballer in a
context of widespread racial discrimination, being polemical (or perhaps be-
cause of this) and having his attitudes continually criticized by many, Leônidas,
the leading player of this generation, was the country’s biggest sports celeb-
rity, capable of acting in the sphere of consumption and boosting the sales of
a range of products (Gordon, 1995).
802
playing alongside other black players who would later become his team mates
in the Rio squad and Brazil’s national side, Leônidas’s talent became clearly ap-
parent to supporters and journalists, who boasted of the emergence of one of
the best prospects for Brazilian football (Pereira, 2000).
The year 1931 marked “definitively the name of Leônidas in the Brazilian
football setting. Despite playing for the modest Bonsucesso, he would soon be-
come known on all Brazil’s football pitches” (Ribeiro, 2010: 36). After the standout
performances for his club and winning the Brazilian Club Championship for Rio
de Janeiro, Leônidas was invited to wear the jersey of the Brazilian team in the
1932 Rio Branco Cup along with other players who, like him, had shone in the Rio
teams. Accompanied on the pitches by stars like Domingos da Guia, Oscarino,
Gradim and Jarbas, he led the national side in its historical win over Uruguay,
scoring both goals in Brazil’s 2-1 victory. Winning the 1932 Rio Branco Cup proved
to be a landmark in the history and self-esteem of Brazilian football, as well as a
watershed in the career of Leônidas, quickly identified as the team’s star player
and hero of the national squad (Pereira, 2000; Ribeiro, 2010).
The enthusiasm generated by winning the title was so great that on their
arrival back in Rio de Janeiro, the players were welcomed by a jubilant crowd
parading through the city’s streets. During the celebrations, driving in an open
car along Rio Branco Avenue, they were able to feel at close hand the warmth
of thousands of people cheering deliriously, Leônidas and Domingos in particu-
lar. From that moment, as champions of the Rio Branco Cup wearing the Brazil-
ian team shirt, the two black players and the Rio suburb became consolidated
as the major stars of the nation’s football:
Domingos and Leônidas, carried by the crowd at the moment they landed, were
the most celebrated. Applauded with ‘real enthusiasm’ by the supporters lining
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 799 – 823, december, 2017
the avenue in a display that ‘was as powerful as it was spontaneous,’ they attrac-
ted most of the attention and delir ium of the fans. Recog nized as leg itimate
representatives of Brazil, they were greeted along with the other players by the
head of the provisional government himself, Getúlio Vargas – who, as the dele-
gat ion passed in front of the Catete palace, remained on the palace balcony
waving to the champions until the parade had passed by (Pereira, 2000: 324).
The success of players like Leônidas and Domingos prompted the wealthy
Uruguayan football clubs to spare no expenses in signing them. While the de-
fender agreed a transfer to Nacional and became a club idol, Leônidas signed a
contract to wear the Peñarol shirt. On December the 7th 1932, the Jornal dos Sports
reported Leônidas’s final words as he embarked for Uruguay: “Through Jornal dos
Sports I say my farewell to the Rio people and the enthusiastic ‘fans’ who I know
I’m going to miss.” At the new club, he found it very difficult to adapt. He was hit
by a series of injuries and his performance failed to match expectations, since
“the freedom granted to players by Uruguayan clubs [...] was a problem for Leô-
nidas, who, in order to keep fit in Brazil, had needed to be kept under constant
surveillance” 4.
article | everardo rocha and william corbo
803
804
match for third place. As far as Leônidas’s performance in the World Cup was
concerned, all expectations were exceeded. Emerging as the tournament’s top
scorer and biggest star, he was celebrated as the hero in the Brazilian team’s
unprecedented and surprising third place. The Black Diamond was hailed as
“the best centre-forward in the world!” 7 and acclaimed by the entire French
press. According to Raymond Thoumazeau, columnist of the magazine Match,
“This rubber man possesses the diabolical gift of being able to control the ball
lying down or in the air and shoots explosively when least expected.” 8
Returning from the World Cup,9 Leônidas became established as the great-
est Brazilian footballer currently active (Ribeiro, 2010). In the same year he won
the Brazilian championship with the Rio squad (the Seleção Carioca). In 1939, he
led Flamengo to victory in the Rio Championship. The following year, however,
his relationship with the club began to unravel, his knee showed signs of strain,
and the fans became more impatient and mistrustful of their star striker. Despite
the criticism, Leônidas scored 30 goals in the 1940 Rio Championship. Later, in
1941, injured and immersed in disputes with the Flamengo directors, his contract
was suspended by the club. In the same year, he was convicted for illegalities on
his military certificate and spent time in prison in Vila Militar, where he was
idolized and admired as the country’s top footballer. After the spell in prison,
the fight with Flamengo became even more accentuated and frequently spilled
into the newspapers. The press would publish full-page reports, listing the
criticisms made by the directors concerning the player’s behaviour, and, on the
other side, Leônidas’s accusations against the club’s agents (Ribeiro, 2010).
The dispute with Flamengo ended in 1942 when Leônidas transferred to
São Paulo, the club for which he would play until the end of his career in 1949.
In his debut appearance, a match against Corinthians, his importance to Brazil-
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 799 – 823, december, 2017
ian soccer and his consolidation as a star with a huge capacity for social mo-
bilization were clearly apparent. More than 70,000 people packed the Pacaem-
bu stadium to watch the first game of the Black Diamond wearing the São
Paulo tricolour shirt, beating the stadium’s attendance record in the process
(Ribeiro, 2010). Between 1942 and 1949, Leônidas scored 144 goals in the São
Paulo jersey and won the São Paulo championship in 1943, 1945, 1946, 1948 and
1949. By the end of his career, though still considered the best player competing
on Brazil’s pitches, he was not selected by the coach Flávio Costa to dispute the
1950 World Cup held in Brazil. After the national team’s tragic loss to the na-
tional team to Uruguay at the Maracanã itself, many said that had Leônidas
been playing, history would have turned out differently.
805
806
cesses of the national team represented the idea of a harmonious Brazil, capable
of uniting distinct classes and groups around a common project.
In this movement, the sports press of the period, especially the journalist
Mário Filho, campaigned hard for the professionalization of the sport and for a
greater presence of black players in Brazilian soccer (Leite Lopes, 1994). While
Leônidas was gracing the nation’s pitches, the sports press was expanding at a
breath-taking pace and football invaded the newspaper pages, radio programs
and day-to-day conversations in the city. Since the end of the 1920s and the
advent of radio, football had reached an ever-widening public that had previ-
ously lacked any access to matches, events or information on the sport. In the
same period, the expansion of the specialized press was also significant. Accord-
ing to research conducted by the National Department of Trade, sports periodi-
cals leapt in number from five journals in 1912 to fifty-eight in 1930 (Souza, 2008).
Important publications emerged, like Jornal dos Sports, Rio Sportivo and Mundo
Esportivo, and the journalist Mário Filho became a prominent figure in football’s
development and expansion (Leite Lopes, 1994; Pereira, 2000; Souza, 2008).
In 1931, with Roberto Marinho taking command of the newspaper O
Globo, Mário Filho became responsible for its sports section and from that mo-
ment the talent of black players like Leônidas and Domingos was extolled in
the paper’s day-to-day coverage and special reports. Then in 1936, Mário Filho
bought Jornal dos Sports, founded five years earlier by Argemiro Bulcão. Under
his direction, the newspaper began to be printed on pink paper and transformed
into one of the main outlets of the national sports media. In 1938, together with
Roberto Marinho, he launched O Globo Esportivo. More than a journalist, Mário
Filho had become the main disseminator of football in Brazil and effusively
championed causes that valorised the presence of black players at the top clubs
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 799 – 823, december, 2017
and in the national side (Leite Lopes, 1994). For him, these players were the true
representatives of the Brazilian style of playing football (Rodrigues Filho, 2010).
Discussing Mário Filho, Pereira (2000: 331) emphasizes that:
Since 1931, the journalist had already emphasized in the pages of O Globo the “bewil-
dering mobility and rapid play” typical of players like Leônidas, recognized even by
his opponents. Like him, other columnists were focusing their attention in those
years on the first emergence of a “characteristically Brazilian technique of extremely
quick play and dazzling improvisation in the most tricky moments” – which distin-
guished the playing style of the Brazilian athletes from the technique and discipline
learnt from Europeans.
For journalists like Mário Filho, Brazilian football was seen as “equal in
power and art, if not superior, to the football played in both Argentina and
Uruguay” (Pereira, 2000: 331). In this context, the presence of black players,
previously seen as a “shameful defect of the sport practiced in the country”
(Pereira, 2000: 331) became glorified by the press as “the big differentiating
factor of Brazilian football – helping decisively in the creation of a national
article | everardo rocha and william corbo
807
playing style” (Pereira, 2000: 332). Hence the sports journalism of the period,
led by Mário Filho, attributed the black footballers with characteristics that
configured what would become the specifically Brazilian way of playing soccer.
In the press narratives, idols like Leônidas and Domingos, for example, per-
sonified the most important and enchanting characteristics of Brazil’s football.
Along the same lines, an essential role was played by the sociology of
Gilberto Freyre, which takes Brazilian society to be marked by a series of eco-
nomic and cultural paradoxes – European and African culture, African and in-
digenous, Jesuit and farmer, master and slave, university educated and illiter-
ate. These paradoxes expose fundamental dilemmas, ambiguities, dualities and
divisions in Brazil’s culture. Faced with this antagonistic scenario, however, the
peculiar feature of Brazilian culture is the attempt to balance these opposing
forces, elaborating a positive mixture in which the oppositions are equilibrated
and contribute to the forming of an enriched culture (Araújo, 1994). For Freyre
(1975: 52): “Nowhere, perhaps, can we observe with equal freedom the encoun-
ter, intercommunication and even harmonious fusion of diverse or even an-
tagonistic cultural traditions as in Brazil.”
Turning to Brazilian football, he emphasizes the contributions of black
players to our particular way of playing the game, differing from the well-drilled
style of the British “to turn into the dance full of irrational surprises and Dio-
nysian variations that it is” (Freyre, 2010: 25). Domingos da Guia, for example,
had added “a bit of samba, a bit of Bahian molecagem and even a bit of Pernam-
bucu capoeira or Rio malandragem” (Freyre, 2010: 25), while Leônidas performed
a kind of Bahian dance on the pitch. This image of Brazilian football and the
depictions of Leônidas in the media can be summarized by Mário Filho’s nar-
ration of the goal scored by the forward in the match against Poland in the 1938
World Cup, when “Leônidas kneeling, tying his bootlace, the Polish keeper takes
the goal kick, Leônidas stands up, shoots the ball, goal to Brazil” (Rodrigues
Filho, 2010: 218). The representation was one of improvisation, trickery, mischief
and inventiveness in a pure state.
808
The journalists relied on Leônidas to fi ll their copy. ‘The Black Diamond visiting our
offices.’ Visiting houses. Wherever the newspaper went, Leônidas went. The fan
would open the sports pages and there was Leônidas, smiling at him like an old
friend. The fan could cross his legs, recline in the chair, not even remove the tooth-
pick from his mouth to have a chat with the inventor of the bicycle kick. Completely
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 799 – 823, december, 2017
Leônidas’s fame traversed barriers and surprised even those who had
followed his career closely. For the journalist Mário Rodrigues Filho (2010: 194-
195), the welcome given to the players who won the 1932 Rio Branco Cup il-
lustrates the fame and idolization of the striker Leônidas, who, though still
young at the time, already appeared as the biggest star of Brazilian football:
The CBD joined in with the tributes to Leônidas, everyone just wanted to know about
Leônidas and Domingos. One had scored two goals, the other had not let a single ball
past. The symbols of Brazilian football: Domingos and Leônidas.There was another:
Fausto. But Fausto was faraway, he had not competed in the Rio Branco Cup. So Do-
mingos and Leônidas grabbed all the attention. Especially Leônidas.
During the victory parade, it was impossible to walk down Rio Branco Avenue, it was
like the third day of Carnival. Leônidas was on the lowered hood of an automobile,
embracing the Rio Branco Cup. ‘Leônidas! Leônidas! Leônidas!’
article | everardo rocha and william corbo
809
At the 1938 World Cup, Leônidas was the star player of the Brazilian team.
The extent of his fame was such that some journalists claimed that “the most
famous man in Brazil was Leônidas da Silva, not Getúlio Vargas, the president
of Brazil” (Ribeiro, 2010: 112). On the team’s return to the country:
The Brazilian squad would arrive in a city, the shops would close, and people would
swarm into the street to carry Leônidas in triumph. The other players were inside the
automobiles, the automobiles drove slowly, at funeral pace, accompanying the Leôni-
das procession. And everyone thought that they were paying tribute to the Brazilian
team. All the players turned up, but the tribute was for Leônidas, just for Leônidas to
receive medals, baskets of flowers, club banners, Brazilian flags. The others watched
on, squeezed into a room bursting with people, as though they weren’t players (Rodri-
gues Filho, 2010: 219).
When they arrived in Recife, the Brazilian stars were greeted by a crowd
of Pernambuco fans. Amid the players, it was Leônidas who would receive the
main tributes. As the newspaper O Globo reported: “Leônidas, the ‘Black Dia-
mond,’ who shone on the European pitches, was carried in the arms of the
people, who, with great demonstrations of enthusiasm, accompanied the soc-
cer stars at the Grande Hotel. In front of the hotel a large rally is being held by
the sports institutions with the participation of all the social classes.” 12 In Rio
de Janeiro, the fans came to meet Leônidas, all of them wanting to touch him
and receive a hug or an autograph from the Black Diamond. Led from the port
docks to the Botafogo ground, he was greeted by the fans in a tumult of people,
which led to the player fainting, surrounded and squeezed by the crowd (Ribei-
ro, 2010). Even after a few days had passed, the euphoria of the fans had not
waned. More and more people were went after the star, asking for autographs
and making all kinds of requests. What became apparent was that wherever
he went, Leônidas drew large crowds, especially the ‘young women,’ who, when
they passed by the star: “Stopped, looked at Leônidas, and then carried on their
way up and down the avenue, content, as though they had seen a cinema idol”
(Rodrigues Filho, 2010: 212).
Indeed the idolization of Leônidas was such that the star received a
series of prizes. For example, he won a car after winning first place in a com-
petition run by Magnólia cigarettes, the most popular cigarette of the period.
Launched in September 1937, the idea behind the competition was to choose
Rio de Janeiro’s most popular soccer player. To take part, fans had to buy a pack
of the cigarette brand, write the name of the player of their preference and send
it to the manufacturer. In the campaign for the prize, Leônidas distributed bal-
lot boxes throughout the city 13 and encouraged people to buy Magnólia ciga-
rettes: “I want to make a suggestion. I think my idea’s a good one. I want Fla-
mengo’s members and fans to send me just one empty pack of ‘Magnólia’ each
week. As you know, the number of Flamengo fans is huge and a pack from each
one, added up in the end, will be enough for my Chevrolet. The rest is easy.” 14
a star player and the world of goods: soccer and consumption in the public image of leônidas da silva
810
Among other schemes, he came up with an unusual idea to boost his chances
of victory in the competition: “Leonidas was the star who had the laudable
initiative of visiting the Detention Centre to distribute ‘Magnólia’ cigarettes,
which friends who did not smoke sent him.” 15 Leônidas’s popularity was unri-
valled and the Flamengo fanbase was already the largest in the city. The end
result: almost 300,000 cigarette packs with the name of the star, who won the
competition easily (Ribeiro, 2010).
With his newfound prestige, Leônidas began to give talks throughout the
country in which he recounted the goals scored in the 1938 World Cup and spoke
about Brazilian football. The first was held in the João Caetano Theatre in Rio de
Janeiro. Announcing the event, Jornal dos Sports reported: “The ‘Black Diamond’
will describe to his fans in detail the seven goals that he scored masterfully over
the course of the ‘Coupe du Monde.’”16 O Globo reported that: “A unique show will
provide the festive occasion tonight at the João Caetano Theatre, sponsored by
Leonidas, in order to raise funds for the Union of Blind People of Brazil.” 17 The
newspaper also reported that the second part of the show would feature Ary
Barroso, who would be accompanied by some of the big names from Brazilian
music and radio, like Benedito Lacerda and Carlos Galhardo. Days later, another
talk was given by the football star to the public of Belo Horizonte. Procópio Fer-
reira organized the event and covered all the expenses. Leônidas received half
of the revenue. In the first part of the talk, he read a text written by his friend
and journalist José Maria Scassa; next he drew all seven goals scored in the
World Cup on a blackboard located on the centre of the stage. That night Leôni-
das wore a smoking jacket offered by Sapataria Capital as part of an advertising
campaign (Ribeiro, 2010).
As happens with celebrities today, the striker participated actively in the
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 799 – 823, december, 2017
advertising market and in the promotion of sales and business. First were the store
openings. Every establishment wanted the presence of the biggest idol of Brazilian
soccer as a way to boost their sales. And Leônidas went to various. He “would lose
ten minutes, the time needed to take a photograph, open a bottle of champagne,
in the inauguration of a shoe shop, [paid] a pocketful of gold” (Rodrigues Filho,
2010: 221). The 1938 World Cup success, which turned Leônidas into a national
celebrity, led to diverse tributes from commercial establishments, which sought to
associate their products with the star’s image. These episodes were frequently
reported in the press; as in the report “A gift to Leonidas: the offer from Fabrica
Metallurgica Brasileira,” published by O Globo newspaper:
The brilliant performances of Leonidas in the games that our team played in the Old
World, established him as one of the world’s most perfect footballers. This fact gene-
rated exceptional enthusiasm in our country, and various stores, excited by the re-
markable feat of the ‘Black Diamond,’ have offered him gifts, which will be delivered
when he returns to Rio. Fabrica Metallurgica Brasileira, associating itself with these
tributes, has just offered the Flamengo player a chrome lamp with a green porcelain
article | everardo rocha and william corbo
811
spotlight, suitable for an office, which is on display in one of the windows of its store
at Rua da Carioca 53.18
The tributes presented to the star in exchange for advertising were con-
stant. The report “A regal present for Leonidas: Offered to the glorious football
star by the firm J. M. Mello & Cia, a famous bathroom set of green porcelain” 19
informed readers that “The famous ‘Hornberg’ set was offered to Leonidas in a
demonstration of recognition of the great achievements of our glorious ‘scorer.’”
1
Report on the present offered by J. M. Mello & Cia
to the football star Leônidas
Source: O Globo, 18 August 193
a star player and the world of goods: soccer and consumption in the public image of leônidas da silva
812
Another example was reported in the news story “For Leonidas the ‘Para-
gon’ chronograph.” 20 “As we have been reporting, Messrs. Coimbra & Fuah, rep-
resentatives for Brazil of the famous ‘Paragon’ watches, offered an expensive
‘Paragon’ chronograph to the player who scored the first goal for Brazil in the
‘Copa Roca’ match (...) Leonidas, the centre-forward for Flamengo, won the valu-
able ‘Paragon’ chronograph, which will be handed to him at the Jornal dos Sports
newsroom.”
In response to all these actions and the constant pressures from the
brands, Leônidas ended up making some free adverts for stores and companies.
The soccer star saw no difference between giving his autograph and signing a
paper for a friend asking him for this favour. As a result, he ended up lending
his name to diverse adverts without requesting any kind of fee for use of his
image. On one such occasion, “the entrepreneur Manoel de Brito asked Leônidas
to sign a declaration saying that he only ate Peixe guava sweet. The advert was
in all the newspapers, taking up at least a quarter page” (Ribeiro, 2010: 134) and
the payment was a box of guava sweet for Leônidas (see next page).
At the height of his fame, Leônidas was advised by José Maria Scassa. The
latter explained that giving autographs or writing messages in supporter albums
or those belonging to female fans was something he could do. But signing an
advert for a product was work for which he should be duly remunerated, since
the companies were using his image and popularity to make large sums of
money. Leônidas not only agreed with Scassa, he invited the journalist to nego-
tiate his advertising contracts. This was the first time that a Brazilian footballer
would be employed as an official garoto-propaganda, a ‘poster boy,’ for companies,
products and services (Ribeiro, 2010). It was probably at this moment too that
the figure of the agent or entrepreneur emerged, responsible for the commercial
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 799 – 823, december, 2017
contracts of sports celebrities. One of the first contracts signed was with Lacta,
which, soon after the 1938 World Cup, decided to launch the Diamante Negro
(Black Diamond) chocolate, making use of the player’s nickname. Like any con-
temporary celebrity, in this context, the name or nickname of Leônidas was
capable of selling anything, including chocolates (see page 814):
Ary Silva, present at the meeting, saw the magnate pay money for the use of
Leônidas’s nickname for one of his chocolates. This detail is important as it shows
that use of the Diamante Negro label by the chocolate factory was made with the
player’s consent, even though Lacta has frequently been accused of never giving
anything to Leônidas. Ary Silva does not know how much, he recalls that some spoke
about 2 contos, but one thing he is certain about, he saw Leônidas receive a ‘fistful’ of
money from the hands of the magnate. The São Paulo journalist also saw Leônidas
sign a contract that would entitle him to receive a share of the sales of Diamante
Negro chocolate (Ribeiro, 2010: 135).
article | everardo rocha and william corbo
813
2
Advertisement for Peixe Guava Sweet
using the image of Leônidas
Source: Jornal dos Sports, 12 July 1938
a star player and the world of goods: soccer and consumption in the public image of leônidas da silva
814
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 799 – 823, december, 2017
3
Advertisement for Diamante Negro chocolate
Source: O Globo, 22 December 1938
article | everardo rocha and william corbo
815
816
817
only by the initiated. After Leônidas, sport in Brazil acquired a new significance
as business. Since then and especially in the present, what was incipient has
become responsible for producing all kinds of celebrities and multiple markets
that sustain and are sustained by them.
818
NOTES
1 In newspaper reports from the 1930s and 1940s, the name
Leônidas appears without the circumf lex accent (Leoni-
das). Despite this fact, we have opted to write his name
with an accent as it appears in the studies consulted for
this article.
2 The question of Leônidas being a black player in an envi-
ronment rife with racial prejudices, football included, has
already been studied by Gordon (1995), Pereira (2000) and
Souza (2008), among others, as well as the classic O negro
no futebol brasileiro, by Mário Rodrigues Filho (2010). In the
case of the present article, another aspect of Leônidas’s
trajector y will be emphasized: his immense success in
advertising and the impact he had on Brazilian culture
in general.
3 For a wide-ranging review of studies of consumption, in-
cluding works by histor ians, see Rocha, Fr id & Corbo
(2016).
4 O Globo, 15 January 1934.
5 The dispute between amateur ism and professionalism
was intense in the context of Brazilian football in the
1930s. Consequently, the Brazilian national squad was as-
sembled in improvised form for the 1934 World Cup.
6 Numerous explanations exist for the emergence of the
nickname Diamante Neg ro (Black Diamond). In a state-
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 799 – 823, december, 2017
819
BIBLIOGRAPHY
820
821
822
823
826
827
2014), Vocabulário político para processos estéticos (Ribas, 2014) e Copas: 12 cidades
em tensão (Lima, 2015) −, sendo também incorporado pelas instituições de arte.
Em fevereiro de 2014, o Sesc-Pompeia, em São Paulo, organizou uma série de
oficinas que intitulava Artivismo: criações estéticas para ações políticas. No
texto de divulgação, lia-se:
O uso da tecnologia e das novas mídias foi essencial para que esses coletivos se arti-
culassem. A internet veio a ser um instrumento de organização, troca, informação e
aprendizado, sem hierarquias e monopólios.
Esse momento de evidência revelou uma vontade crescente, que já ocorre nos últi-
mos dez anos, de união entre a participação política e ações artísticas e culturais,
criando um território novo, cheio de experimentação estética e de linguagem. 4
Com efeito, a temática da arte política parece ter caído no gosto das
principais instituições de arte a partir de junho de 2013. Desde então houve
uma sucessão de exposições que abordaram a aproximação entre processos
artísticos e ativismo político em importantes eventos de arte no país. De julho
a setembro de 2014, no Rio de Janeiro, a exposição ArteVida, concebida pelos
curadores Adriano Pedrosa e Rodrigo Moura, mobilizou quatro espaços exposi-
tivos da cidade. A mostra dividiu-se nos seguintes módulos: Corpo (localizada
na Casa França-Brasil), Arquivo (Biblioteca Parque Estadual), Política (Museu de
Arte Moderna) e Parque (Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage). Embora tives-
se enfoque histórico, trazendo obras produzidas entre as décadas de 1950 e
1980, incluía discursos de teor político e referia formas de engajamento políti-
co e social para tratar da relação entre arte e vida. A exposição se dava num
momento em que novas formas de pensar o engajamento político da arte vi-
nham sendo elaboradas e postas em prática. Era, de certo modo, uma fonte de
inspiração histórica para os acontecimentos presentes, para a arte que vem
sendo feita hoje. Essa exposição pretendia lançar um panorama da arte crítica
produzida naquela época, e por mais que não tenha abordado as recentes ma-
nifestações artísticas e ativistas, deu grande destaque para a relação de arte e
política na produção brasileira.
Também no segundo semestre de 2014, a 31a Bienal de São Paulo reforçou
o caminho político que as exposições brasileiras vinham tomando – aspectos
dessa grande mostra contribuíram para a problemática da politização da esfera
pública aqui abordada, por isso ela será especialmente desenvolvida em um
próximo tópico.
Em 2015, a estreita relação entre arte e política continuou ganhando vi-
sibilidade e, além de estar presente em museus como o Museu de Arte do Rio,
arte e política: a consolidação da arte como agente na esfera pública
828
arte pela arte, procurariam fundir arte e vida, fosse por meio da rejeição à
autoria, fosse pela crítica ao bom gosto burguês. A crítica ao bom gosto se daria,
contudo, por dentro da instituição arte e do mercado, numa falsa superação
dessa distinção (Bürger, 2008). Ainda conforme o autor:
829
museais, depois da incorporação da crítica das vanguardas à arte pela arte. Não
apenas em âmbito nacional, mas num movimento em que as organizações
internacionais desempenham papel fundamental, uma nova concepção de di-
fusão de cultura passa a dominar os discursos institucionais. Publicações da
Unesco podem ser tomadas como um importante índice dessa mudança.
Realizado pela Unesco em Tóquio em 1960, o seminário The Museum as
a Cultural Centre in the Development of the Community parece ser a primeira
referência ao novo papel a ser atribuído às instituições (Griffing, 1963: 4-5). A
partir do seminário, o conceito de museu parece passar por nítida transforma-
ção naquele período, e, de 1970 em diante, a expressão centro cultural passa a
ser mais claramente usada na revista Museum como novo modelo de instituição
exibitória. Em matéria intitulada “Os museus regionais como centros culturais”,
Edward P. Alexander, em contundente defesa dos ideais museais americanos,
elabora pela primeira vez no periódico a ideia de um centro cultural com “con-
cepção alargada das funções do museu”. Associando a imagem dos museus
europeus a mausoléus, como antes dele havia feito Adorno (1998: 173), ao re-
meter o museu à neutralização da cultura, o autor defende os “programas edu-
cativos e culturais dos museus americanos, em particular dos museus regionais,
os quais são frequentemente autênticos centros sociais e culturais para a co-
letividade” (Alexander, 1970-1971: 275) 6 . A ideia de museu como instituição
para o grande público começa a desempenhar papel fundamental.
Oito anos mais tarde, também a Museum publicaria com grande destaque
a criação do Centro Georges Pompidou em Paris. Reunindo num só espaço as
salas exibitórias de exposições de artes plásticas, biblioteca e espaços para
performances, o centro deslocaria a tradicional centralidade conferida aos mu-
seus de arte e se imporia como novo modelo de instituição de cultura, visando,
antes de tudo, estabelecer uma relação de absoluta proximidade com seu pú-
blico. O desejo de fundar uma instituição para as massas se expressava não só
no projeto de Renzo Piano com sua fachada monumental e sua sinalização em
neon colorido, mas também no pronunciamento do, então, presidente Georges
Pompidou:
Eu desejo ardentemente que Paris possua um centro cultural que seja ao mesmo tem-
po museu e centro de criação, onde as artes plásticas se avizinhem da música, do
cinema, dos livros, da pesquisa audiovisual. O museu não pode ser senão moderno,
uma vez que temos o Louvre (Pompidou apud Fradier, 1978: 77).
830
vida, contribuir para uma sociedade do espetáculo. Com efeito, a partir de finais
dos anos 1970, o discurso das vanguardas passava a ditar as cartas também no
interior dos museus.
Diretor fundador do Centro Georges Pompidou, Pontus Hultén constitui
peça-chave na mudança de paradigma que passa a ordenar as estratégias das
instituições museais e transformar os conservadores de museus em curadores
de exposições. Responsável por transformar Estocolmo numa capital das artes
nos anos 1960, Hultén, numa relação muito próxima com as vanguardas que lhe
eram contemporâneas, introduziria nas instituições de arte por que passou a
ideia de participação do público e o foco nos jovens artistas e na experimentação.
Em entrevista a Ulrich Obrist (2010: 65), numa rememoração do processo de
fundação do Centro Georges Pompidou, de que foi o primeiro diretor, ele diria:
831
832
Eles nos procuraram dizendo o seguinte: “A Bienal vai ser sobre arte e política e nosso
trabalho é político, queremos discutir com vocês.” Nós também achamos o trabalho
deles político, se é artístico não sei. Não estou preocupado em fazer esse julgamento.
A proposta foi apresentarmos o trabalho deles como documento. Não existe picho
consentido. Eles vão apresentar slideshows e fotos (Paola, 2010).
A versão de Djan Ivson era outra. Segundo ele, o convite fora feito pelo
Ministério da Cultura, pasta ocupada então por Juca Ferreira. 12 O grupo fora
procurado após os ataques de 2008 e vinha mantendo o diálogo “porque a nos-
sa luta na realidade é de legitimar a pichação como cultura brasileira, mas sem
tirar nada da essência dela”. 13
De fato, ainda em dezembro de 2008, Juca Ferreira lançava manifesto
sobre o caso da prisão de Caroline Pivetta, enfatizava o diálogo e a produção
de cultura de um ponto de vista da periferia. Segundo ele, “a agressividade
simbólica ainda aparece como ‘alternativa’, de forma ilusória, a estes jovens
submetidos a um cotidiano de violência, e passa a ser a ‘compensação cultural’
por vezes a seu alcance para fugir do crime ou da marginalidade de fato”. 14
Interpretações divergentes têm, contudo, gerado polêmica. Em entrevis-
ta publicada antes da abertura da Bienal, em 2010, Djan Ivson dizia: “Se a so-
ciedade está interessada em ouvir a gente, estaremos lá para falar. Sem querer
apaziguar, sem querer dar uma de bonzinho” (De Lucca, 2010). O episódio do
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 825 – 849, dezembro, 2017
833
A BIENAL DO ARTIVISMO
Pensando sobre a (inter-)relação entre arte e política, é impossível não men-
cionar a 31 a Bienal de Arte de São Paulo ocorrida de setembro a dezembro de
2014. Ao caminhar pelo Parque Ibirapuera com destino ao Pavilhão da Bienal,
era possível notar que o clima de expectativa por se estar indo assistir a uma
Bienal de Arte se misturava com o impacto daquilo que se ia revelando aos
poucos. E, ao adentrar o prédio, uma dúvida permanecia: tratava-se de arte ou
de militância política? Inúmeras discussões nos corredores da mostra e nos
veículos de comunicação especializados voltaram-se para a compreensão da
proposta daquela Bienal de São Paulo, que já era encarada como a mais políti-
ca de todas, ficando conhecida como a Bienal que uniu arte e ativismo. 18
arte e política: a consolidação da arte como agente na esfera pública
834
835
cinco curadores estrangeiros, ou seja, uma curadoria coletiva, em que não hou-
ve um curador chefe. A construção da proposta curatorial dessa edição foi sen-
do acompanhada e construída sob o olhar e a avaliação de 15 participantes que
se reuniram em encontros abertos ao público realizados em algumas cidades
brasileiras, e outras pelo mundo, mensalmente de outubro de 2013 a novembro
de 2014, período que antecedia a mostra:
Como parte da 31a Bienal de São Paulo em seu impulso de intercâmbio e formação, a
equipe de curadores (Charles Esche, Galit Eilat, Nuria Enguita Mayo, Pablo Lafuente e
Oren Sagiv) programou uma série de encontros abertos com profissionais do meio ar-
tístico e com o público geral. A ideia é que os encontros funcionem simultaneamente
como ferramenta de pesquisa e como forma de avaliação crítica do processo curato-
rial, envolvendo artistas, críticos, curadores, estudantes e demais interessados na
organização da exposição.19
836
Bienal também seguia esse fluxo. Momento de virada diferente da virada moder-
na apoiada na noção de progresso, um momento de virada não delimitado, quan-
do não se sabe ao certo aonde se chegará. “Esse estado de virada é nossa condição
contemporânea e, por conseguinte, a condição desta 31a Bienal.”22
Contando com mais de 100 participantes de 34 nacionalidades com 84
projetos, essa Bienal teve como marca a colaboração. Um visitante atento pode-
ria facilmente perceber o grande número de obras de artistas realizadas em
colaboração − entre os próprios artistas ou entre artistas e ativistas −, e também
o grande número de coletivos de arte. Coincidência ou não, no site oficial dessa
31 a Bienal de São Paulo, pela primeira vez, não se encontravam as palavras
“artistas” ou “obras” e sim “participantes e projetos”. Assim, percebe-se um dis-
curso que transpassa movimentos de incorporação do público por meio de
obras-processos que envolvem mais do que os artistas convidados, membros
de movimentos sociais e idealizadores de projetos.
Esse processo de incorporação de não artistas para dentro de bienais
pode ser observado nos últimos anos em outras bienais ao redor do mundo,
como no caso da 55 a Bienal de Veneza, a “Bienal do impossível”, ocorrida em
2014, e da 7 a Bienal de Berlim, em 2012, aquela por expor obras de não artistas,
como Carl Gustav Jung, esta por expor trabalhos de ativistas, como o Occupy
museum, e dos pichadores de São Paulo.
No texto curatorial da 7a Bienal de Berlim, observa-se um tom de rup-
tura com as demais edições do evento, abordando uma proposta bastante pa-
recida com a da Bienal de São Paulo de 2014. Os movimentos sociais sendo
incorporados como obra, tais como o movimento americano Occupy Museum
em Berlim e as ativistas bolivianas do Mujeres Creando em São Paulo, são sinais
de que a arte de hoje realmente está passando por processo diferente de outros
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 825 – 849, dezembro, 2017
837
O Bloco Reciclato, entre apitaço e panelaço, afirmava “o sertão não vai virar MAR”
e perguntava como artistas e coletivos de artistas que circularam com os movi-
mentos pela moradia podiam, agora, expor os resultados no Museu que é um sím-
bolo da gentrificação. É possível mostrar seu trabalho sem ser “capturado” pelo
dispositivo MARítimo? É possível “criativos” atuarem criticamente – “dentro” e
“contra” – esse MAR que coroa um projeto de cidade de expulsão dos pobres? É pos-
sível que o próprio MAR atue “dentro” e “contra” esse projeto de cidade? É possível
criar outras institucionalizações da arte que não modulem por meio de seus sutis
dispositivos a crítica constituinte da cidadania?
838
Espaço de debate e ação. Espaço de uma arte que REAL-liza no aqui e no agora, que
se alimenta e alimenta movimentos sociais e propõe outros tipos de dissidências,
fugindo dos clássicos rituais de protesto.
Antonio Bokel não chama de curadoria o processo de seleção dos artistas que par-
ticipam do livro ‘Atemporal’ (Réptil), que reúne trabalhos de 19 representantes das
artes plásticas [...]
– Não sou curador. Prefiro chamar de ‘agregadoria’. É um processo intuitivo que parte
de encontros com artistas. Tem muita gente que descobri na internet, é uma rede que
vai se formando – conta Bokel.
Ele também não usa a palavra galeria para definir o local do evento:
– A ideia é que não seja um cubo branco, e o foco também não é a comercialização.
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 825 – 849, dezembro, 2017
É um projeto que tem três pilares: internet, livro (que contou com um crowdfunding)
e galeria.
839
CONSIDERAÇÕES FINAIS
A aproximação entre arte e crítica política da qual tratamos diz respeito a um
processo recente que tem buscado, na ação coletiva e no diálogo com as ques-
tões do dia a dia das minorias sociais, políticas, econômicas e culturais, trazer
para a esfera da arte discussões eminentemente políticas. A proposta de muitos
grupos parece ser discutir as mazelas sociais a partir das linguagens artísticas.
Trata-se, de fato, da politização da esfera da arte. E, ao que tudo indica, no dis-
curso dos atores sociais, a sociedade civil não mais recebe relatos do que acon-
tece no universo da arte, ela é convidada a participar e dialogar com as obras
de arte, os artistas e os curadores, não apenas como público observador ou tema
arte e política: a consolidação da arte como agente na esfera pública
840
dos trabalhos, mas como coautor. Se nos anos 1940, Benjamin havia diagnosti-
cado a “atrofia do parlamento” 27 e Hannah Arendt falava, nos anos 1950, da
substituição da esfera pública pela predominância da esfera social, 28 o que
procuramos argumentar aqui é que parece ocorrer neste momento o surgimen-
to de grupos de interesse organizados que rompem com esse processo.
Se ao fim dos anos 1960 a crítica das vanguardas se impôs sobre os mu-
seus, abrindo os ditos mausoléus ao discurso democratizante dos centros cul-
turais, críticos desse processo têm chamado a atenção para o surgimento de
museus de culturas de massas, ao longo das duas últimas décadas do século
XX (Huyssen, 1997). O que argumentamos com este artigo é que, ao longo do
último triênio, a difusão desse diagnóstico no Brasil tem apontado para novas
críticas e novos desdobramentos. Se, como diz Hannah Arendt (2000: 390), as
massas são informes e “devem ser conquistadas por meio da propaganda”, os
tempos são outros, e a organização de grupos de interesse, via redes sociais,
vem colocando em xeque tradicionais mecanismos de cultura de massas e
junto com eles museus e centros culturais. Assim, o que procuramos mostrar
é que nesta segunda década do século XXI novas instituições e arranjos insti-
tucionais têm surgido no bojo de uma nova configuração política que incide
com vigor sobre o campo da arte, colocando em xeque sua autonomia.
Coletivização: ato ou efeito de coletivizar-se. Esse termo em suas várias
declinações é a palavra de ordem do momento. E, assim, artistas se reúnem em
coletivos a fim de dar voz a suas poéticas e das minorias, e curadores se unem
em uma das principais mostras de arte do país para discutir os problemas
sociais de forma estética. De fato, produzir coletivamente é o mote da vez. Não
é possível dizer se essa tendência terá um longo futuro, mas atualmente ela
está presente com toda a potência, efetivamente modificando a relação de
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 825 – 849, dezembro, 2017
841
842
NOTAS
1 Este artigo é resultado de pesquisa realizada com apoio
do CNPq (Edital Universal) e Faperj ( Jovem Cientista do
Nosso Estado).
2 A respeito da noção de esfera pública ver Habermas, 1984.
3 Cf. material de divulgação do Seminário Nacional O Sen-
tido do Público na Arte. Disponível em: http://www.mac-
niteroi.com.br/?p =1748. Acesso em: 15 abr. 2015.
4 Disponível em <http://oficinas.sescsp.org.br/evento/show/
artivismo-criacoes-esteticas-para-acoes-politicas-vagas-
-disponiveis>. Acesso em 3 jul. 2015
5 Vale ressaltar que esse museu possui uma relação parti-
cular com coletivos artísticos desde sua inauguração − e
que será discutida posteriormente −, relação que envolve
o reconhecimento de alguns desses grupos por essa ins-
tituição e ao mesmo tempo causa repúdio a outros cole-
tivos.
6 Para um balanço histórico das questões que envolvem os
centros culturais, consultar Dabul, 2008.
7 O mote de aproximação entre arte e vida é recorrente no
discurso das vang uardas históricas e ser viu tanto para
depreciar as instituições museais como aquelas que apar-
tam os objetos de seu uso no mundo da vida quanto para
defender uma estetização do real que passava pelo design
construtivo. A esse respeito, ver, por exemplo, Fabbrini
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 825 – 849, dezembro, 2017
(2013).
8 O processo, é claro, não se restringe ao Brasil. Nas últimas
Bienais de Veneza e Berlim aspectos semelhantes foram
destacados.
9 Importante colecionador e curador sueco, ajudou a fundar
o Centro George Pompidou em Par is e foi seu pr imeiro
diretor. É reconhecido pela inovadora forma com que go-
vernou essa instituição de arte, quando expandiu seus
limites tradicionais abrindo-a a múltiplas atividades.
10 Walter Zanini dirigiu o Museu de Arte Contemporânea de
São Paulo de 1963 a 1978, realizando grandes transforma-
ções no perfil da instituição, incentivando produções ar-
tísticas experimentais como videoarte e arte postal.
artigo | sabrina marques parracho sant’anna, guilherme marcondes e ana carolina freire accorsi miranda
843
844
20 Disponível em <http://www.31bienal.org.br/pt/post/471>.
Acesso em 3 jul. 2015.
21 Disponível em <http://www.31bienal.org.br/pt/post/1998>.
Acesso em 3 jul. 2015.
22 Disponível em <http://www.31bienal.org.br/pt /informa-
tion/754>. Acesso em 3 jul. 2015.
23 Cf. Fôlder da exposição.
24 Cf. Casa Nuvem. Disponível em <https://www.facebook.
com/casanuvem/>. Acesso em 1 jul. 2015.
25 Cf. Olho da Rua. Disponível em <https://www.facebook.
com/OlhoDaRua06/>. Acesso em 2 jul. 2015.
26 Apenas para mencionar alg uns exemplos, há espaços
como És uma maluca, em Vila Isabel, e a Casa Amarela,
na Tijuca, ambos na Zona Norte da cidade, e o Catete92,
no Catete, a X Casa, em Laranjeiras, os dois últimos na
Zona Sul. Todos esses espaços se descrevem como espaços
colaborativos de criação artística.
27 A esse respeito, diz Benjamin (1985: 183) na primeira ver-
são de “A obra de arte na era de sua reprodutibilidade
técnica”: “A metamorfose do modo de exposição pela téc-
nica da reprodução é visível também na política. A crise
da democracia pode ser interpretada como uma crise nas
condições de exposição do político profissional. As demo-
cracias expõem o político de forma imediata, em pessoa,
diante de certos representantes. O Parlamento é seu pú-
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 825 – 849, dezembro, 2017
845
REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS
846
847
848
849
Silvina Merenson I
INTRODUÇÃO
Desde o final da década de 1990, a literatura sobre cidadania e práticas políticas
transnacionais demonstrou os modos complexos pelos quais os processos mi-
gratórios operam sobre as formas de fazer política, pensar aptidões institucio-
nais e explicar, entre outras questões, os critérios de representatividade, legiti-
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 851 – 877, dezembro, 2017
852
853
854
tal como indicam alguns estudos sobre temáticas análogas (Itzigsohn & Sauce-
do, 2002; Portes & Rumbaut, 1990). Seria melhor conceber tais práticas como
resultado de múltiplas e robustas inserções ou do que Lacroix (2014) define
como “hiperintegração”. 5 Seguindo a recente proposta de Boccagni, Lafleur &
Levitt (2015), nos propomos, aqui, a identificar os atores (migrantes e não mi-
grantes), os canais de circulação, os tipos de contato entre eles, a permeabili-
dade e o estabelecimento de limites em termos de recursos e, finalmente, a
infraestrutura que permite o fluxo de remessas políticas para o caso da FAUA.
O material empírico que sustenta este artigo é fruto de um trabalho de
campo etnográfico multissituado desenvolvido entre 2009 e 2015 na Argentina
e no Uruguai. Seguindo as pessoas, as metáforas, a trama/relato/alegoria, a
vida/biografia e o conflito, tal como sugere Marcus (1995), a pesquisa abarcou
a interação com os transmigrantes de nacionalidade uruguaia que mantêm ou
mantiveram práticas políticas transnacionais desde sua chegada à Argentina
entre o final da década de 1940 e a atualidade. Entre 2009 e 2014, realizei 43
entrevistas em profundidade e levantei 22 histórias de vida de homens e mu-
lheres pertencentes a diferentes gerações e classes sociais, em sua maioria
vinculados a coalizão de esquerda Frente Ampla (FA). Meus interlocutores estão
radicados na cidade de Buenos Aires e região metropolitana, assim como em
outras províncias argentinas. A análise das entrevistas realizadas se articula
ao grande número de conversas e interações informais, bem como ao registro
etnográfico das múltiplas e diversas instâncias públicas e semipúblicas de reu-
nião que mobilizaram a militância transnacional tanto na Argentina como no
Uruguai. Refiro-me a atos partidários e eleitorais, mesas-redondas, jornadas
eleitorais, reuniões, assembleias e plenários que tiveram lugar no transcurso
das duas últimas campanhas eleitorais relativas às eleições presidenciais de
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 851 – 877, dezembro, 2017
2009 e 2014. No caso das últimas eleições (2014), tive a opo rtunidade de parti-
cipar, entre os meses de agosto e novembro, da dinâmica diária de um dos
Comitês de Base 6 da FA que funciona no Centro da cidade de Buenos Aires.
Dado que o artigo assume uma perspectiva histórica, nele os dados etnográfi-
cos são conjugados com a revisão de fontes secundárias e com a análise de
fontes produzidas pelas/pelos entrevistados e/ou suas agrupações políticas e
pela imprensa escrita 7 uruguaia e argentina.
855
856
Nunca tinha visto nada igual, crianças nas marchas, bombos, festa. Enquanto cami-
nhava no meio de toda essa gente, vi uma bandeira que dizia “Matacos12 con Perón”.
Foi a primeira vez na minha vida que eu vi um índio: e eram peronistas! Aí eu disse:
“aqui tem alguma coisa, isto é muito importante”, e então comecei a me interessar e
a me relacionar. Quem veio em 73, 74, pôde se radicar rapidamente graças ao pero-
nismo. Quem não reconhecer isso, está faltando com a verdade13 (José, entrevista, 24
set. 2014).
Eu era gorila [antiperonista] lá [em Paysandú] e continuei sendo gorila aqui [em Bue-
nos Aires]. Na semana que eu cheguei [agosto de 1975] andava [pelo bairro de] Once14
caminhando e vi um ônibus todo incendiado. Os Montoneros15 o tinham incendiado,
jogaram um coquetel molotov. Nunca vou me esquecer disso. Eram pessoas trabalha-
doras... Ficou claro para mim que isso não tinha nada a ver com o que eu considerava
política. Eu não queria saber nada dessa gente (Pedro, entrevista, 15 out. 2011).
857
Nós, em Quilmes,17 fizemos dois comitês de base. Um funcionava numa sede da UOM
[Unión Obrera Metalúrgica] e outro numa sede do PI. Os companheiros nos davam
uma baita mão, porque espalhavam a notícia de que nós nos reuníamos ali, coloca-
vam a informação nos seus boletins. Se eles conheciam algum uruguaio no trabalho,
no bairro, onde quer que fosse, diziam para dar uma passada lá. As coisas eram assim
quando não tinha Facebook [risos] (Mariano, entrevista, 23 ago. 2013).
858
859
860
Mate Amargo, nov. 1989; La República, 25 & 26 nov. 1989), foram decodificados como
parte da disputa política que então se colocava. Ismael, que integrava a Mesa
Diretora da FAUA, procurava explicar a situação da seguinte maneira: “os funcio-
nários da Aduana tornaram nossa vida impossível, nos pediam dinheiro, nos
pediam documentos de não sei o quê, listas disto, daquilo. Eram todos colora-
dos, 21 então obviamente não queriam que passássemos. Nós, imagina, íamos
cantando, com as bandeiras: éramos um voto certo para a Frente Ampla!”
Essas cenas de fronteira, relatadas por quem participou das primeiras
viagens, são contrabalançadas por um profundo sentido afetivo no momento
de descrever a recepção dos que vinham do exterior e os trâmites administra-
tivos orientados a facilitar seu deslocamento. Neste último ponto, os viajantes
evocam o decreto presidencial pelo qual o governo argentino outorgou licença
remunerada aos cidadãos uruguaios que fossem empregados da administração
pública e que estivessem em condições de viajar para votar – medida que, en-
tre outras, foi reiterada a cada nova jornada eleitoral, indicando como certas
práticas de Estado 22 foram incorporadas às redes da FAUA – e o efusivo recebi-
mento da caravana que somava mais de 300 ônibus especialmente alugados
para a viagem. A imprensa também se ocupou de registrar a recepção: várias
notas e editoriais abordaram a chegada dos votantes ao Uruguai num tom que
oscilava entre o enaltecimento do compromisso e os arroubos épicos. A ideia
de estar cumprindo um dever cívico, a responsabilidade 23 com que o fizeram e
o suposto esforço que tudo isso demandava eram combinados com a descrição
de performances sumamente emocionadas, como a entonação do hino nacional
por parte dos votantes que pisavam solo uruguaio (El País, 26 nov. 1984) ou o
fato de alguns deles dormirem em praças e espaços públicos à espera do mo-
mento da votação (El País, 27 nov. 1989). A isso se somava outro dado importan-
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 851 – 877, dezembro, 2017
861
862
863
864
865
PALAVRAS FINAIS
Este artigo se propôs a explorar a criação, a consolidação e as conjunturas de
desestabilização da FAUA que, entre outras questões, mobiliza o voto transna-
cional conhecido como voto Buquebus, que implica o deslocamento de ideias,
valores, pessoas e votos provenientes da Argentina a cada jornada eleitoral no
Uruguai há mais de três décadas. Para isso, em perspectiva histórica, contem-
plamos as transformações relativas tanto aos atores (migrantes e não migran-
tes) que integram a rede quanto aos canais de circulação, seus limites e infra-
estrutura, tal como propõem Boccagni, Lafleur & Levitt (2015).
A partir da reconstrução do processo histórico-político que deu origem
à militância transnacional frenteamplista na Argentina, bem como da dupla
transição política que identificamos para ela e das conjunturas de (des)estabi-
lização de sua rede (integrada por militantes políticos, dirigentes sociais e sin-
dicais, funcionários de governo, meios de comunicação e empresários de ambos
os países), buscamos evidenciar algumas questões indicadas pela literatura
resenhada na primeira parte deste texto.
Inicialmente, vimos que as práticas políticas transnacionais do frente-
amplismo na Argentina não se reduzem a um mero deslocamento de votantes.
Na verdade, tal deslocamento é possível porque existe uma trama de relações e
alianças políticas históricas que atravessam as fronteiras territoriais, suscitan-
do aprendizagens e recursos de diversas ordens. Num segundo momento, vimos
redes, práticas e remessas políticas: a frente ampla do uruguai na argentina e o voto transnacional
866
que aqueles que mobilizam essa rede e esse voto não o fazem – pelo menos não
unicamente – em sinal de “apoio” ou “interesse” pelos familiares e amigos resi-
dentes no país; mais do que isso, eles/elas disputam ativamente as agendas de
campanha, esperando alguma retribuição em termos de governabilidade da
diáspora que integram. Em terceiro lugar, procuramos indicar que, embora a
referência dos transmigrantes para se incorporar à vida política do país de ori-
gem costume ser o país de residência, ela se encontra intimamente associada a
questões tais como as relações bilaterais ou os alinhamentos das forças políticas
e dos países em questão, cujas histórias confluem em experiências comparti-
lhadas, tais como o terrorismo de Estado dos anos 1970 e as transições demo-
cráticas dos anos 1980. Possivelmente essa sintonia contribui para explicar a
incorporação à vida política transnacional não como o resultado ou o efeito
“reativo” experimentado diante das dificuldades e estigmatizações no país de
destino, mas como produto de uma multiplicidade de diálogos e adscrições
identitárias de longa data, que tendem a mostrar a hiperintegração daqueles
que compõem a rede e decidem sobre ela. Dito de outro modo, as práticas polí-
ticas da militância transnacional frenteamplista na Argentina parecem habili-
tadas pelas intersecções dos vínculos pessoais e das relações institucionais
travadas ao longo de uma história compartilhada, que põe em jogo – a partir de
políticas públicas e práticas de Estado – transferências financeiras e ideológicas
e pertencimentos geracionais. Tudo isso, com os conflitos que supõe, expressos
no paulatino processo de institucionalização do voto transnacional, constitui a
rede que a FAUA soube construir e nos ajuda a compreender as transformações
materiais operadas sobre sua principal remessa política.
Cabe sinalizar uma última questão. Como indicamos na introdução, a
pergunta sobre as modalidades de criação, consolidação e desestabilização das
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 851 – 877, dezembro, 2017
867
868
NOTAS
* Uma versão anterior deste texto foi discutida na “Primera
Jornada sobre memoria, historia y presente de la izquierda
en Uruguay”, realizada em Montevidéu nos dias 8 e 9 set.
2016. Agradeço os comentários recebidos naquela ocasião,
assim como as valiosas contribuições realizadas pelos ava-
liadores anônimos do artigo. Agradeço também a Alex Mar-
tins Moraes e Juliana Mesomo a tradução deste artigo para
português.
1 Diferentemente do conceito de “migrantes”, o de “transmi-
g rantes” desig na aqueles sujeitos que “desenvolvem e
mantêm múltiplas relações – familiares, econômicas, so-
ciais, organizacionais, religiosas, políticas – que transcen-
dem fronteiras. Os transmigrantes atuam, tomam decisões,
se sentem implicados e desenvolvem identidades dentro
de redes sociais que os conectam com duas ou mais socie-
dades de forma simultânea” (Glick Schiller, Basch & Blanc-
-Szanton, 1992: 1-2).
2 Buquebus é o nome de uma das empresas de navegação
f luvial que faz o trajeto entre Buenos Aires (Argentina) e
Colônia do Sacramento e Montevidéu (Uruguai). É a empre-
sa que os uruguaios estabelecidos em Buenos Aires utili-
zam, majoritariamente, para ir votar no país de origem.
3 Vale acrescentar que a referida inscrição se perde caso o
cidadão não exerça o voto em duas eleições nacionais con-
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 851 – 877, dezembro, 2017
869
870
871
872
873
REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS
874
875
876
877
i Institute of Social and Political Studies of the State University of Rio de Janeiro
(IESP-UERJ) and Fundação Casa de Rui Barbosa, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
clynch3@hotmail.com
ii National University of Buenos Aires (UBA), Buenos Aires, Argentina
piapaganelli@gmail.com
INTRODUCTION
Gilberto Freyre is traditionally identified, along with other important commen-
tators of the 1930s, with one of the major turning points in Brazilian thought,
moving towards a greater commitment to historical and sociological objectivity
and to the critique of Brazil’s social formation. His work has also been recognised
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 879 – 903, december, 2017
as belonging to a lineage of authors who, after the rise of the Republic, devoted
themselves to the historical review of the social and political formation of the
colony and the Empire. Thus Ângela de Castro Gomes (2000) suggests that, with-
out denying the major theoretical and methodological innovation introduced by
Freyre in his interpretation of Brazil’s colonial legacy in Casa-grande & senzala
(translated into English as The masters and the slaves), his work displays simi-
larities with the collective endeavour of diverse historians active during the first
decades of the Republican experiment – concentrated especially at the IHGB
(Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro) – to rethink the nature of historiograph-
ic work and the use of historical methods and sources that went beyond an at-
tempted Republican mythological reconstruction of the Brazilian past. Viewed
from a political angle, Freyre has recently been situated within a conservative
culturalist line of Brazilian thought, opposed to the modernization promoted
both by statist nationalism and by liberal cosmopolitanism (Lynch, 2017). The
first work by Freyre to have an impact on Brazilian social thought was Casa-
grande & senzala, published in 1933, in which the author accounts for the forma-
the culturalist conservatism of gilberto freyre
880
tive institution of the Brazilian nation as a colony: the patriarchal rural and
feudal system, organised around the sugar plantation economy and slave labour,
in which social actors circulated who transcended the family nucleus and in
which inter-racial relations were characterized by a type of antagonistic sociabil-
ity that oscillated between intimacy and violence. In Sobrados e mucambos (trans-
lated as The mansions and the shanties), for its part, published in 1936, we accom-
pany the decline of this same patriarchal society, caused by the rose of a new
urban order marked by impersonality. This second book, therefore, replaces the
Brazilian cultural ambiguity between patriarchal tradition and the Portuguese
influence for the ambiguity between patriarchal tradition and the process of
westernization influenced by bourgeois Europe.
The objective of the present article is to comprehend the intellectual
production of Gilberto Freyre from the ideological viewpoint. Here we employ
the concept of ideology in the weak sense, understood in the plural, as a “set
of ideas, beliefs, opinions, and values that exhibit a recurring pattern, are held
by significant groups, compete over providing and controlling plans for public
policy, and do so with the aim of justifying, contesting, or changing the social
and political arrangements and processes of a political community” (Freeden,
2003: 32). The meanings and communicative importance of ideologies can only
be determined by ascertaining their syntax (that is, their basic structures and
the relational patterns between their components), their conventional uses in
a social context and the degree of acceptability of the rules set by it (Freeden,
2003: 43). The three major modern political ideologies are liberalism, socialism
and conservatism, the first of which pursues values like reason, individual
freedom and progress; the second, the welfare of the collectivity, equality and
work; and the third, change within order, respecting the pre-existing traditions.
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 879 – 903, december, 2017
Here we set out from the premise that these three ideologies underwent al-
terations in being transplanted from Europe to Iberian America and, conse-
quently, to Brazil in particular. The perception of the Ibero-American elites of
occupying a peripheral and backward place in the western world subjected
these ideologies to a double filter, represented by the binary pairs of cosmo-
politanism and particularism, and modernity and backwardness, which con-
ferred them certain particularities. Foremost among the latter is the repetition
of certain common themes turning “basically around the diagnosis of national
backwardness, barbarity, delay or underdevelopment and the imperative of
progress, civilization, evolution or development, means conducive to the trans-
formation of structures inherited from colonization to catch up with centric
modernity” (Lynch, 2016: 83).
Comprehending Brazilian political culture as a composite of diverse ide-
ologies, or lineages, or intellectual traditions, the present article thus explores
the diverse forms through which conservatism had to respond to the chal-
lenges of adapting to a society perceiving itself as peripheral and backward as
article | christian edward cyril lynch and pía paganelli
881
882
ism. While recognizing its problematic aspects, its supporters also saw the
positive aspects of this society, principally the singular and harmonious char-
acter of its culture, seeking to defend it against liberal, Americanist, individu-
alist and secular cosmopolitanism, but also against the interventionism of
national statists, whether conservative or socialist.
The already classic studies of Wanderley Guilherme dos Santos (1978),
Bolívar Lamounier (2006) and Gildo Marçal Brandão (2005) on Brazilian political
thought primarily focus on the conservative strand that we denominate state
reformist and that they have called instrumental authoritarian, authoritarian and
organic idealist, respectively. The existence of the second strand, however, seems
to have passed them by unnoticed, probably due to their emphasis on the social
rather than the political. This has become the subject of increased attention over
recent years. In reflecting on the difficulties and specificities in the definition of
conservative thought in Brazil during the twentieth century, Bernardo Ricupero
(2010: 92) approaches the differences between authors like Freyre and Oliveira
Vianna. While, for the latter, the accusation that the rural element was responsi-
ble for the ‘disorder’ of Brazilian society resulted in a rupture with the conserva-
tive defence of social traditions and the defence of the State assuming a leading
role, for Freyre, on the contrary, the reiteration of the rural and patriarchal as-
pects of the national formation would make him more fond of tradition, a cen-
tral element in the classic definition of conservatism, making him one of the few
representatives of Brazilian social thought “closest to classic conservatism.”
Other works have shown how this distinction can be traced back to the nine-
teenth century. This would suggest, therefore, two different strands of the Bra-
zilian conservative tradition, sometimes allied, sometimes clashing: one of a
reformist and statist orientation, the product of enlightened absolutism and
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 879 – 903, december, 2017
883
led more radicalized sectors of the expanding middle class to lean towards
socialism. The modernist elements of his writings were pushed into the back-
ground of analyses, and Freyre became criticized by the socialist-inclined intel-
ligentsia, working in university environments, due to the aristocratic elements
embedded in his work. Finally, we look to identify some of the positive aspects
of Freyre’s culturalist conservatism in a peripheral context that tends to be
continually devalued as a society compared to centric models. We argue that
the construction of an imaginary of national belonging, in the form of positive
shared reference points, was largely due to people like Alencar and Freyre, who
fought against statists like Uruguai and Oliveira Vianna for whom the nation
was non-existent or spineless, and against liberals like Tavares Bastos and Al-
berto Sales, for whom the backward state of Brazilian society was such that it
could only be recuperated, they argued, by changing identity through a cul-
tural transplant. In the specific case of Freyre, Evaldo Cabral de Melo (2010: 24)
reminds us that, in his time, nobody did more “to transform miscegenation
from passive to active, from an object of pessimistic lucubrations into a motive
for national optimism.”
The recourse to an interpretive essay of Brazil as a means to apprehend
its underlying ideology does not seem unreasonable to us. Despite the ‘scien-
tific’ pretension of these essays, all of them had some intention of intervening
in the political debate and, as such, belong to Brazilian political thought, un-
derstood in the narrower sense as a “a smaller set of more comprehensive,
systematic or abstract works, which comprise the canon of ‘classics’ of our
political thought, left by our main political thinkers” (Lynch, 2016: 87). Gener-
ally materialized in books judged to be classics and taking the form of an in-
terpretive essay of Brazil, the works of these authors are seen as the highest
expressions of what can be understood as Brazilian political theory and/or a Bra-
zilian political science, in the sense possessed by the latter expression prior to
the institutionalization of universities. However ‘sociological’ some of these
works may appear, their aspiration to intervene in public debate is evident and
their normative quality or the political values guiding them allow us to iden-
tify their ideological profile. Here, therefore, there is no depreciative intention
to identify the political orientation of the cited works, which clearly have lost
none of their heuristic capacity to interrogate reality. All forms of political
thought, however scientific their aim, possess an ideological dimension that
derives from an elaborate mixture of rational or scientific elements and others
that are emotional or ideological properly speaking (Freeden, 2003: 67).
884
focused his efforts on producing a work that would dialogue more deeply with
the historical and social science of his time. The first result of the young Per-
nambuco intellectual’s efforts was Casa-grande & senzala: formação da família
brasileira sob o regime da economia patriarcal, one of the great classics in the inter-
pretation of Brazil, published in 1933, whose impact was simply overwhelming.
In the book, Freyre presents a social history of the Brazilian family based on the
slave-owning patriarchal archetype that characterized it under the old colonial
regime. Transformed into a core explanatory category in the nation’s formation,
the slave-owning family (the casa-grande, manor house) was considered by
Freyre (2002: 130) the nucleus of the country’s civilization: the manor houses
had been the force responsible for maintaining the country’s moral unity, they
were “centres of patriarchal and religious cohesion,” serving as “points of sup-
port for national organization.” They comprised an “immense feudal power”
(Freyre, 2002: 132) that exercised all the social functions possible at the time:
“fortress, chapel, school, workshop, holy house, harem, convent, lodging” (Freyre,
2002: 134). Freyre’s conception of the formation of Brazilian society and his es-
article | christian edward cyril lynch and pía paganelli
885
say-like style in analysing are based, therefore, around three elements that
would permeate his entire work and prove fundamental to Casa-grande & sen-
zala: the patriarchy, the interpretation of cultures and the tropical. The patriar-
chal family, more precisely the family model typical of the sugar-producing
Northeast, was constituted by bonds that went beyond blood ties and through
which a heterogenous series of actors circulated: slaves, bastards, adoptees,
chaplains, employees, etc. In this sense, the house was far more than just the
family home: it comprised a key institution for understanding Brazilian colo-
nial society. Casa-grande & senzala describes the almost feudal domination of the
patriarchal rural owner of the sugar plantation: the women and children from
his family resided in the manor house, the slaves in the senzala, the slave quar-
ters; buildings that acquired a not only architectural meaning, but also a sym-
bolic one representing an entire autonomous lifestyle. The senzala was the
ideal type, social and ethnic, opposite that of the manor house, with which it
maintained a system of antagonisms held in check or balanced by domestic
intimacy, including sexual, and by the “conditions of fraternization and social
mobility peculiar to Brazil” (Freyre, 2002: 197). Freyre radically innovates by pro-
viding the reader with a vision of Brazilian society as hierarchical, original and
positive, and, at the same time, integrated and resigned to its conflicts. In this
way, the author offers what, in the words of Ricardo Benzaquen de Araújo (1994:
30), constitutes “the bases of a true collective identity, capable of stimulating
the creation of a unique feeling of community by making explicit the bonds,
until then unsuspected, between the different groups making up the nation.”
Published in 1936, the book Sobrados e mucambos: decadência do patriarcado
rural e desenvolvimento urbano is presented as a continuation of Casa-grande &
senzala, shaped by its underlying arguments and use of its same frameworks
(Freyre, 2002: 665). In this work, Freyre describes the form through which the
patriarchal society, organised around the sugar mill in the colonial period, began
to disintegrate following the arrival of the Portuguese royal family in Rio de Ja-
neiro in 1808, eroded by foreign influence, on one hand, and the continuous
increase in the urbanization of the country, on the other. The first edition con-
tained one paragraph and seven chapters: “How the social landscape of patriar-
chal Brazil changed during the eighteenth century and the first half of the nine-
teenth century”; “The sugar mill and the square”; “The house and the street”;
“The father and the son”; “The woman and the man”; “The townhouse and the
shanty”; “The Brazilian and the European”; “Rise of the graduate and the mu-
lato.” Sobrados e mucambos foregrounds the period of transition from the manor
house (rural residence of the colonial Brazilian aristocracy) to the sobrado, the
townhouse or mansion (urban residence of the Brazilian aristocracy); and from
the senzala (dwelling place of the slaves on the sugar plantations of colonial
Brazil) to the mucambo, the shanty (precarious residence of former slaves). And
since in Freyre the intimate/domestic (i.e. private) sphere is presented as a syn-
the culturalist conservatism of gilberto freyre
886
ecdoche of Brazilian society, as public life, both books presume the transition
from sugar to industry, from farms to cities, from colonial traditions to moder-
nity and from aristocracy to the bourgeoisie, with the consequent social impacts
of these changes. Hence the narrative of Sobrados e mucambos accompanies and
constructs the image of the progressive advance of modern individualism as a
regulator of social relations in substitution for the organic relation represented
by the Brazilian patriarchal model.
The changes are traversed by a dynamic of passional, sexual, exuberant
and unequal sentimentalism, which is linked to the distinctive feature of Portu-
guese colonization in Brazil, its Moorish cultural roots and its adaptation to the
tropical climate. Even so, the presence of the house, as a category of the private,
allows us to understand Freyre’s conception of race and culture (2013: 22) by ar-
guing that: “The house is, in fact, the most important centre of adaptation of man
to the environment.” This supposes the use of the concept of race as an effect
more than a cause of the combination of environment and culture. For Freyre,
then, race was a cultural transformation modified and adapted to the environ-
ment, not a determinist element that conditions the social relations, moral and
psychological characteristics and cultural legacy of miscegenation. As Elide Ru-
gai Bastos (2006: 132) reminds us, Freyrian culturalism, a legacy of Boas and his
American experience, allows us to “discern in the anthroporacial object of study
its potential development into anthroposocial.” For this reason, it was in his work
that, for the first time in the history of Brazilian social thought, the civilizational
contribution of the black population was recognized (DaMatta, 2013) by breaking
with the biologicist paradigm, since he sought to base his argument on cultural-
ism, though he did not succeed in freeing himself entirely from the influence of
the racial vocabulary left behind by nineteenth-century theories (Costa Lima,
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 879 – 903, december, 2017
1989). Freyre thus works ambiguously with the concept of race insofar as he gives
the impression that he does not wish to adhere to its usual sense. Indeed, while
in Casa-grande & senzala he studied Brazil on the basis of its formative races,
highlighting its racial mixture and tropical climate as vital components of the
future Brazilian ethos, in Sobrados e mucambos the categories that structure the
text are now cultural, not biological or geographical, dualities (DaMatta, 2013):
Distinguishing race from culture and thereby valorising the contributions of the Ne-
gro, the Portuguese and – to a lesser degree – the Indian on an equal footing, our
author is able not only to overcome the racism that had been significantly organizing
Brazilian intellectual production, but also to construct another version of national
identity in which the obsession with progress and reason, the integration of the
country in the march of civilization, was to a certain point replaced by an interpre-
tation that paid some attention to the hybrid and singular articulation of traditions
that took place here (Araújo, 1994: 28).
887
around the particular ambiguity with which he employed the categories of race
and culture. For example, Freyre mentions the Portuguese, Jews and English in
cultural terms, but the dimension of the Aryan race is absent. At the same time,
he makes use in his descriptions both of physical and geographic features and
of cultural features when discussing the black slaves. Benzaquen exposes this
apparent ambiguity when he argues that Freyre’s viewpoint is informed by a
neo-Lamarckian conception of race (Lamarck represented the ultimate link be-
tween social theory and biology) which supposes an unlimited aptitude of human
beings to adapt to the most diverse conditions of the physical environment. Thus:
Although he also does not refrain from mobilizing the interaction between races,
physical environment and culture, Gilberto Freyre does so in order to demonstrate
the superiority of the influence of social structure over the racial structure and the
physical environment. Hence his notion of the tropics is opposed to geographic and
climatic determinism, since it also implies the affirmation of the modifying influence
of culture on nature (Botelho, 2010: 57).
888
European influences and the competition of commerce, banks, the State, the
Church, factories and colleges – all symbolized by the street and the square
(the public and impersonal). The emergence of the public sphere occurred, there-
fore, in Brazil, simultaneously with the decline in the country’s authentic for-
mation: the townhouse replaced the manor house; the shanty replaced the
slave dwellings. The feudal political organization and frondeur that had char-
acterized the colonial regime (Freyre, 2002: 768) gave way to monarchist cen-
tralization, especially under the Second Empire. Capitalism, statism, college
education and cosmopolitanism, all represented by Dom Pedro II, eroded the
foundations of the old rural aristocracy. Previously hidden away at home, wom-
en began to receive visits and appear in certain social circles. Children began
to study in religious colleges and soon challenged the authority of the priests.
Converted into graduates, they preferred the more foreign and cosmopolitan
city world to the organic life of the sugar plantation of their parents. They had
become “French-influenced, urbanized and civilized” (Freyre, 2002: 737). Social
stratification was made more complex by the timid emergence of a middle class
between the manorial and slave castes, represented archetypically by the bacha-
rel mulato, the mixed-race graduate. A reconfiguration took place, therefore, of
the system of antagonisms in equilibrium that had reigned during the colo-
nial and rural period, reinforced by a process of Europeanization that caused
society to lose its old oriental aspect. The backdrop to the Freyrian narrative is
the idea that the material and moral progress of modern western civilization
– governed by the principles of the public, the urban and individualism – dis-
solved the antagonistic balance on which Brazilian society had once been sus-
tained. But the new cosmopolitanism never triumphed entirely over the old
and organic. Patriarchal habits adapted to the city but did not vanish: “The
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 879 – 903, december, 2017
drama of the disintegration of the power, for a while almost absolute, of the
rural pater familias in Brazil was not so simple, nor the rise of the bourgeoisie
so rapid” (Freyre, 2002: 738). “Brazilian patriarchalism, moving from the sugar
plantations to the townhouses, did not surrender immediately to the street;
for a long time the house and the street were virtual enemies” (Freyre, 2002:
750). The woman of the townhouse began to enter public life, “albeit little-by-
little” (Freyre, 2002: 755); she continued to be abused by her father and her
husband, “less, however, than in the manor houses of the farm and plantation”
(Freyre, 2002: 835). Examples like these can be multiplied by the dozens.
From the political or ideological viewpoint, with its flagrant nostalgia for
the past order, the conservative vocation of Sobrados e mucambos is undeniable,
revealing the attraction for the hierarchical order, whose antagonisms of race,
gender and class became balanced and harmonized through the interpenetration
of cultures, resulting in a kind of hybrid, typically Brazilian sociability. The pa-
triarchal organization is described by Freyre (2002: 659) as “a near marvel of
accommodation: of the slave to the master, of the black to the white, of the son
article | christian edward cyril lynch and pía paganelli
889
Brilliant and literate young men, they lacked, however, that good down-to-earth sen-
se, that equilibrium, that solidity, that view of things that one only gains with expe-
rience, that deep political realism of the majority of the captain generals sent by the
Portuguese government to its American colony (Freyre, 2002: 768).
890
As the country became urbanized, these antagonisms acquired a new intensity; the
equilibrium between the whites of the townhouse and the free pretos, caboclos and
pardos [black, indigenous-white mixed race and brown populations] of the shanties
would not be the same as between the whites of the old manor houses and the negros
of the slave dwellings. True, while the antagonisms intensified, the opportunities for
social ascension also increased for those slaves and children of slaves in the cities
with artistic skill or extraordinary intelligence or special qualities of sexual attrac-
tion. And miscegenation, as widespread in the cities as on the farms, softened, in its
own way, the antagonisms between the extremes (Freyre, 2013: 168).
a more organic way free of outside interference. Brazil should not, therefore,
confront its present challenges by employing the State to destroy the past in
the name of modernity. Instead society should be modernized in accordance
with its own rhythms with the State limiting its actions to preserving and
promoting the pre-existing national identity against foreign influence. The pace
with which the modern foreigner was being welcomed in the country should
be curbed in order to allow a suitable hybridization or accommodation with
the legacy of the past. That is how it had always been, Freyre argued. It amount-
ed to a peculiar dynamic in which the new and the traditional always eventu-
ally adapted to each other.
While for Freyre the “amalgam of cultures” occurs within the patriarchal
family (Bastos, 2006: 103), it is patriarchalism, not the centralizing and tutelary
State, that unifies and informs Brazilian society. The mulato, as an intermediary
class and the protagonist of the process of democratization of Brazilian soci-
ety, such as presented in Sobrados e mucambos, illustrates the moment of tran-
article | christian edward cyril lynch and pía paganelli
891
With or without the favour of the State or the Church – with which it clashed more
than once – this system was the most constant and widespread dominant power or
influence – economic, political, moral, social influence – in our formation [...] always
the domain of the family, the economy, the patriarchal organization that rarely had
another type of family, economy or organization able to compete with it for predomi-
nance over Brazil’s formation (Freyre apud Bastos, 2006: 107).
892
intimacy, prevented the remaining liberals and emerging socialists from per-
ceiving him as an adversary. Such is suggested by Antonio Candido (1993, p. 82):
“For my generation, he functioned in the 1930s and 1940s as a master of radical-
ity. what fascinated us was the extremely liberated manner in which he dis-
mantled the solemn conception of social history, talking with a delicious free-
dom about sex, family relations, food, clothing.”
The conservatism underlying Freyre’s modernism only began to be de-
tected and denounced after the Second World War with the sudden boom in
industrialization and urbanization, forcing the rapid democratization of soci-
ety, which seemed to open up a new era for the country. The growing desire to
make a clean slate of a past perceived as hierarchical and unjust deepened
among those sectors of the middle class increasingly committed to socialist
ideology. In a context where the social sciences where becoming established
as university disciplines, led by heads of school who projected themselves as
intellectuals with the technical knowhow to make strategic use of social reform
in a democratic era, the virtual consensus that had once surrounded Freyre
article | christian edward cyril lynch and pía paganelli
893
894
senzala had not seen black people as a dynamic component of the nation, but
as a picturesque and mummified element, a leftover of the colonial period;
“something strange, exotic, problematic” (Ramos, 1995: 189). Like his master,
therefore, Guerreiro criticized Freyre for petrifying with his culturalist essen-
tialism the possibility of social change through political action – with the dif-
ference that, instead of great men, it would now be the work of the actual
people, increasingly aware of their national potency.
Critiques of Freyre’s work for its culturalist conservatism also issued
from the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences of the University
of São Paulo, whose social scientists were also inspired by the production of
critical sociological knowledge, socialist in orientation, though distinct from
that of the capital of the Republic, due to its cosmopolitan or foreign dimension.
Young scholars like Antonio Candido (apud Mota, 1977: 130) complained: “Look
at our master Gilberto Freyre – to what point he is taking his culturalism. His
latest works decline into the most lamentable social and historical sentimen-
talism; into conservatism and traditionalism...” In the following decades, the
São Paulo School of Sociology, headed by Florestan Fernandes, also began, like
Guerreiro Ramos, to refute Freyre’s hypothesis that Brazilian society was some
kind of racial democracy (Ricupero, 2010: 97). After 1964, the widespread attack
on every kind of conservatism led socialists like Octavio Ianni (1989: 111) to list
the statists and culturalists on the same side, representatives of a supposed
‘Prussian path’ of Brazilian modernization, keen to divest the people of any and
all possibility of popular intervention: “This is the basic direction taken by the
thought of Oliveira Vianna, Francisco Campos, Gilberto Freyre, Miguel Reale...”
Carlos Guilherme Mota (1977: 74) was another robust critic of Freyre’s work,
qualifying it, from the viewpoint of radical thought, as oligarchical and “pro-
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 879 – 903, december, 2017
895
State merely sanctioned or confirmed” (Freyre, 2002: 653). And he warned that
any reform of Brazilian society should respect this earlier formation or risk
failure. In an interview given decades later, Freyre would touch on the subject
of his conservatism in a more direct and fearless form:
Far from playing dead, Freyre also responded strongly to his critics. He
repeatedly denounced the attacks made by his colleagues of a socialist, social
democratic or Marxist orientation, and counter-attacked whenever he could,
especially after the Cuban Revolution and the João Goulart government acceler-
ated the process of ideological radicalization in the country. Thus, in the preface
to the third edition of Sobrados e mucambos (1961), Freyre bitterly recognized the
growing critiques of his work by commentators of Brazil like Caio Prado, Astro-
gildo Pereira and Werneck Sodré, attributing them to “ideological motives.” His
strategy was to turn to his description of the modernist Iberianist to describe
himself either as an anarcho-traditionalist or as a revolutionary of order; some-
one who creatively reconciled the two elements only incompatible in the mind
of Marxists, who were the real archaic or outdated ones. The future belonged to
those who knew how to reconcile “tradition with modernity” (Freyre, 2002: 656).
The same strategy resurfaces in the preface to the 11 th edition of Casa-grande &
senzala (1964), in which he accused his Marxist adversaries of attacking him in
“more or less violent outbursts,” steeped in ideological preconceptions and ori-
entations that were “above all anti-colonialist and anti-Iberian,” informed by
“largely outmoded philosophies of history” (Freyre, 1967: CXIX). By then, im-
pressed by his eulogy for the malleable capacity of the Portuguese to adapt to
the tropics, his ‘Lusotropicalism’ had already been appropriated and dissemi-
nated by the Salazar dictatorship to defend the Portuguese colonial empire. On
the other hand, the alliance of the statist and culturalist conservatives at the
time of the 1964 coup d’état around the banner of anti-communism and anti-
liberalism would lead to the formation of an ideological block in support of the
military regime, which mixed elements of both strands to justify the regime,
exhorting the need to defend national, family, harmonious and Christian culture.
Freyre would be the figurehead for this bloc.
CONCLUSION
In this article we have shown Gilberto Freyre to be a major twentieth-century
representative of a minority strand of Brazilian conservatism, the culturalist
strand, characterized by its extolling of the Iberian and Catholic heritage, whose
the culturalist conservatism of gilberto freyre
896
A social critic of the slave-owning and patriarchal Brazil of his time, Alencar was not
part of the flock who allowed themselves to be dominated by a systematic opposition
to everything that was patriarchal, slave-owning and almost feudal in Brazilian so-
ciety of the time, perceiving only the beauty of the social organization and cultural
enchantments found in the triumphantly bourgeois Europe and in the United States,
equally bourgeois in its national ways of being. His modernism was not so strong that
it extinguished his critical equilibrium or closed him off from any traditionalism; nor
did it leave him content with the bourgeois values triumphant in Europe and Portu-
guese America. It may have been in his own Anglophile way [...]. But he always kept
both feet firmly on the Brazilian ground (Freyre, 2010: 146-147).
897
898
form, Olavo de Carvalho (2010: 205-207) publicly defended Freyre’s work in the
first years of this century against what he called the “São Paulo sociology, Marx-
ist and PT-ist, of Dr. Florestan Fernandes.” There was no term of comparison
between them: “What we have is a Freyrian sociology against a Stalinist doctrine
legitimized ex post facto by a clumsy arrangement of methodological pretexts.
The dispute only existed in the USP imagination, incapable of distinguishing
between a universal genius and a state public functionary.” The evidence that
the cultural dispute over the interpretation of Brazil remains, now as in the
previous century, an inseparable part of the political-ideological struggle of
conservatism only reinforces the importance of studying it today as it re-emerg-
es with a surprising vitality in the public sphere.
Thirdly and finally, it should be observed that, like all the other ideologies
making up Brazilian political thought, culturalism possesses both positive and
negative aspects. It is not the case here to make one more critique of Freyre – at
this point, anachronistic and, why not say it? useless – for the conservative na-
ture of his work, which is amply known. Here, on the contrary, we wish to high-
light its ideologically positive side, revealing that Brazilian culturalist conserv-
atism can and should not be condemned en bloc. The reason is simple. In a
context, like Ibero-America, self-perceived as backward and peripheral, liberal
cosmopolitanism and socialism invest in the radical critique of the national
formation and the society resulting from it, exorcising the past as the accursed
when present ills were gestated, in order to force a flight towards the future, the
time of utopia towards which all hopes converge. The problem is that every at-
tempt to realize a radical utopia, which involves the radical rupture with the
existing order, inevitably involves a paradox since it can only be achieved by
using elements taken from the very same order with which it aims to break
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 879 – 903, december, 2017
(Houston, 1993: 17). The radical utopian strategy tends to fail to the same extent
that the paranoid rejection of the past impairs objective knowledge of the same
and leads to an exacerbated repetition of the same errors in the form of its op-
posite – that is, a dystopia. The resulting frustration reinforces the mongrel
complex, that is, a feeling of inferiority, producing an interminable vicious circle
that ultimately undermines democratic collective action and feeds authoritari-
anism.
In this sense, despite its regressive power, Brazilian culturalist conserva-
tism produced a feeling of positivity. Given that it is impossible for a national
society to grow and develop in a conscious way without foundational or iden-
tificatory mythologies that serve positive narratives about itself, especially
whether this society is recent, peripheral, backward and semi-colonial, authors
like Alencar, Freyre, Nelson Rodrigues or Ariano Suassuna revealed through their
intellectual production an extraordinary creativity in the formulation of an
imaginary capable of functioning as a reference point for nationality. Their cul-
turalism created a narrative of national formation that privileged what unites
article | christian edward cyril lynch and pía paganelli
899
it rather than what separates it, what harmonizes it despite the country’s vio-
lence and inequalities. This narrative created an imaginary of the Brazilian
identity that gave meaning to the whole and helped reduce the inferiority com-
plex and the pathological Eurocentrism of our elites concerning themselves and
the population governed by them. For this reason, it is worth asking whether, in
a peripheral country like Brazil, the culturalist nationalism of Freyre, despite his
conservatism, did not perform an indispensable function by generating a sense
of self-esteem without which any endeavour, even progressive, becomes impos-
sible. So much so that the affirmation of his legacy was not limited to the con-
servative camps of Olavo de Carvalho. It was also promoted by liberals, like
Roberto DaMatta, and socialists, like Darcy Ribeiro, who adapted it precisely to
make up for the lack of a positive vision of the Brazilian people in the narratives
of the ideologies represented by them, a vision essential to support them in
democratic terms.
900
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Araújo, Ricardo Benzaquen de. (1994). Guerra e paz: Casa-
-grande & senzala e a obra de Gilberto Freyre nos anos 30. Rio
de Janeiro: Ed. 34.
Bastos, Elide Rugai. (2006). As criaturas de Prometeu. Gil-
berto Freyre e a formação da sociedade brasileira. São Paulo:
Global.
Bastos, Elide Rugai. (2005). Raízes do Brasil-Sobrados e mu-
cambos: um diálogo. Perspectivas, São Paulo, 28, p. 19-36.
Botelho, André. (2010). Passado e futuro dos ensaios de
interpretação do Brasil. Tempo Social: Revista de Sociologia
da USP, 22/1, p. 47-66.
Brandão, Gildo Marçal. (2005). Linhagens do pensamento
político brasileiro. Dados – Revista de Ciências Sociais, Rio
de Janeiro, 48/2, p. 231-269.
Burke, Maria Lúcia Garcia Pallares. (2005). Gilberto Freyre:
um vitoriano nos trópicos. São Paulo: Ed. Unesp.
Candido, Antonio. (1993). Recortes. São Paulo: Companhia
das Letras.
Carvalho, Olavo de. (2010). Gilberto Freyre na USP. In: Fal-
cão, Joaquim & Araújo, Rosa Maria Barbosa de (org.). O
imperador das ideias: Gilberto Freyre em questão. Rio de Ja-
neiro: Topbooks.
Castro Gomes, Ângela. (2000). Gilberto Freyre: alguns co-
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 879 – 903, december, 2017
901
902
903
Edilene Leal I
In this article 1 I examine the debate over Jessé Souza’s interpretation of Brazil-
ian modernization as selective in nature – that is, singular, distinct from the
model of modernization inspired by European societies and the United States.
This interpretation is explored here as a counterpoint to the reading of Sérgio
Buarque de Holanda, Raymundo Faoro and Gilberto Freyre of the topic, all of
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 905 – 936, december, 2017
whom supported the view that Brazil’s Iberian origins prevented adequate mod-
ernization of our institutions and social behaviours. I stress the point that al-
though Souza’s work constitutes a fundamental landmark in Brazilian sociol-
ogy and social theory, A modernização seletiva [Selective modernization] still
exhibits remnants of the acritical vision of Brazil. I argue that it is a certain
ambiguity in Weber’s theory of modernity that causes the author to lapse into
the same mistake, simultaneously rejecting the theory of backwardness while
defending the concept of selective modernity.
From the outset it should be noted that the article is guided first and
foremost by the idea central to historical sociology 2 that the formation of each
and every society obeys singular existential processes and dynamics, without,
though, this fact precluding the apprehension of those elements that have
become widespread and constant across the diversity of social developments.
One of the key features of this new approach is to reject the idea of a process
of universal modernization able to serve as a model for all societies, thus sug-
gesting that this process evades the control of human actions. Now, this un-
jessé souza: a relapse into the interpretation of universal modernity?
906
theory of Max Weber, that enables us to comprehend, on one hand, that diverse
modes of social formation and development exist, and, on the other, that soci-
ology’s task is to seek out what remains general or constant in the diverse
modes of different societies. Consequently, this article is inspired by the critique
of ‘big things’ (Rorty, 2007) shared by Weber and Foucault, their rejection of the
so-called universal questions, the representative ideals. Among the questions
that they pose we can list: What is the truth of modernized society? What is
the determining character of each culture? How can true democracy be estab-
lished? These are metaphysical questions, self-descriptions, discourses that,
though presented as a universal truth, are merely interpretative names by
means of which human beings from every era constitute their perception of
the surrounding world and through which they act and reflect. In other words,
these names are immanent to historical phenomena: they do not hover over
them, determine them from outside, or pull them towards a predefined destiny;
much the opposite, they are led by history.
article | edilene leal
907
This historicizing of big things does not preclude the possibility of elab-
orating valid scientific discourses about societies and their events. In this pro-
cess of elaborating some kind of ‘positivity,’ we can perceive subtle but clear
differences distinguishing the two authors, Weber and Foucault. It is precisely
through these differences that I shall look to isolate my own analytic perspec-
tive. First we can observe an initial convergence in the authors’ interpretation
of social reality: differences should be marked in relation to their identities
when it comes to interpreting or describing a particular historical formation
of an image of the world, a self-description or a device, in order to make the
singularity of the whole appear (the phenomenon posed to difference). It is
differences that are emphasized, therefore, not identities. These marked dif-
ferences retrace the comprehension of phenomenal singularities, the descrip-
tion of the starting point of difference and the interpretation of the singular-
ity of the empirical phenomenon, respectively. However, this initial convergence
on a detail – though details are what is most important in these theories –
transforms into a clear conceptual divide when the authors turn to examine
the same phenomenon and its analytic premises: modern society.
Unlike Weber, Foucault refused to generalize the discourse on the singular-
ity of the phenomenon, even surreptitiously, although he recognizes its historical
and empirical validity. As Paul Veyne (2010: 46) once said: “Leave little facts in
peace, but make war on generalizations. As Foucault, this unexpected positivist,
vouchsafes no more on this score, let me chance my arm.” While Foucault (2002)
remained entirely sceptical about the existence of big things from the very begin-
ning to the end of his work, Weber did not recoil from what he saw as a scientific
task, namely, the elaboration of generalizing and universal explanations of socie-
ties. Here, then, a question arises: when Weber affirms the inexorably universal
condition of modern rationality, is he not producing generalizations that deny the
phenomenal singularities or underlying perspectival differences? I believe so.
In Weber, this demand for generalization is clearly inscribed in one of
his most important methodological concepts, the ideal type, whose central
objective is to make a determined singular phenomenon as unequivocal as
possible. Through his empirical studies, Weber shows how the comparative
analysis of historical formations produces typical concepts: capitalism, Calvin-
ist belief, the theodicy of salvation, and so on. The singular aspects of specific
phenomena are multiple. It is left to the researcher to select and emphasize,
based on his or her interests and values, which aspects to privilege and which
to ignore. Most scholars of Weber’s thought tend to conclude that the central
interest driving him was understanding the modern phenomenon of ration-
alization. This concept assumes a key role in his comparative analyses of world
religions, in his studies of modern politics, in his essay on music – in sum,
throughout his intellectual trajectory. But above all it seems to be a general
conclusion of his concerning the phenomenon of western modernity:
jessé souza: a relapse into the interpretation of universal modernity?
908
Reading this introductory passage to The Protestant ethic and the spirit of
capitalism, it is not difficult to note that the task of conceptual generalization
induces the reader, and perhaps Weber himself, to downplay or even ignore the
fact that although the phenomenon became universal in its effects and causes,
this does not imply that its process of historical constitution has not been
contingent and singular. For this very reason, it cannot be comprehended as a
metaphysical entity capable of being coupled to other social formations, as
though the type of society that becomes constituted at a particular time and
place could provide a ‘mirror’ from which other societies can learn, ignoring
the fact that involves processes that require human action, making them un-
predictable, contingent and unrepeatable.
It is important to emphasize this point because this Weberian prerogative
of defining a generalizing scientific semantics for modern societies has inspired
worldviews, sociological theories and political practices that postulate the exist-
ence of an ideal and universal model of society to be copied by all other societies
worldwide. In the immediate post-war period, sociological, political and eco-
nomic studies of so-called peripheral societies became consolidated, especially
in the United States. These studies were guided by the theory of modernization.
In a nutshell, the theory of modernization argues that the technical and scien-
tific rationalization forged in Europe and the United States would expand to all
parts of the world as a model in which other societies would see themselves
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 905 – 936, december, 2017
909
on its everyday beliefs and on its political and institutional practices. The prin-
cipal names involved in this interpretation are Gilberto Freyre, Sérgio Buarque
de Holanda and Raymundo Faoro, who, despite the differences in their perspec-
tives, reached a common denominator: namely, that Brazilian modernization
has been slow compared to European and American modernization. This
amounts to a typical case of what Bertrand Badie (1992) called overlapping
histories – that is, the problem experienced by non-European societies guided
at scientific and practical-institutional levels by two temporal constructs: one
their own, endogenous; the other from the European world, exogenous. So when
they elaborate self-descriptions and operate with interpretative models taken
from European and American social theory, they tend to conclude that their
own society’s actualization the model is, by comparison, equivocal, backward,
inferior. To paraphrase Roberto Schwarz (2014), it is not the ideas that are out
of place, but the place that is ill-suited to the ideas. Much of Brazilian sociol-
ogy, however, became wrapped up in the notion that societies and their pro-
cesses and dynamics follow a homogenous and universal line of modernization,
such that all of them actualize some essential concepts: individualism, the sep-
aration of public and private spheres, liberalism, and so on. Once these com-
mentators perceived that modernization in Brazil proceeded on bases divergent
from those considered exemplary, they evaluated this process negatively.
The realization that ideas are not abstractions that can be transplanted
from one place to another is clearly formulated by Jessé Souza (2000a) in A mod-
ernização seletiva: uma reinterpretação do dilema brasileiro. Overall, Souza 3 con-
cludes that the common interpretative baseline of these founders of the view of
an atavistic Brazil is the notion that our Iberian origin prevented the adequate
modernization of our institutions and conducts: modernization is defined and
achieved by Europe and the United States. To critically challenge this entrenched
interpretation of Brazil, Souza elaborated the concept of selective moderniza-
tion, by which he means that here we developed the selective, singular type,
different from the kind imposed as a model of modernization, that is, European
societies and the United States. Brazil’s peculiar condition, however, did not
make it backward as the sociology of ‘atavistic culturalism’ believed: we are just
as modern as any other society. But while this peculiarity of our modernization
makes us no less modern, it certainly makes us a peripheral, negative and selec-
tive version of a particular idea of modernity. Since what is ‘peripheral,’ ‘nega-
tive’ and ‘selective’ is always so by comparison with the standard and the centre,
we can presume that this concept of selective modernity defended by Jessé
Souza is still aligned with a self-description (in theoretical terms) and a self-
affirmation (in practical and institutional terms) oriented by a particular mod-
ern ethos representative of the essence of societies. As a consequence, decon-
structing the modern ethos as representative of the essence of human societies
seems to me of considerable analytic value, providing that “all the cards are
jessé souza: a relapse into the interpretation of universal modernity?
910
placed on the table” – that is, the persistence of its defence does not appear to
drift away from the author’s true intentions. Not least because he does not seem
to be acting against science, nor in favour of “conservative political ideologies,”
by supposing that Brazil actualized the universal demand for modernization on
the basis of specific and unique cultural premises.
Why, then, call this process a singular, selective and/or elective moder-
nity or a negative modernity? When talking about modernity in European coun-
tries, why do we not speak of the selective modernity of England, France or
Germany? This is important to register because Jessé Souza sets out from the
premise that Brazil is modern yet, because of the way it was structured around
inequality and social exclusion, the country developed the peripheral type of
modernity. Now, as already observed, a concept is always affirmed in relation
to another that is negated. This being the case, the above concepts require at
least some kind of central and positive modernity. The question is: how can an
interpretation that attempts to critically reconstruct the specificities of Brazil-
ian modernization, purged of ahistorical explanations frozen in time, end up
producing normative formulations that are not so different from the interpre-
tative limitations critiqued previously?
The brief discussion that follows on Jessé Souza’s conception of selective
modernity takes as its central theoretical premise, as indicated above, the re-
jection of the ideal of universal modernity and the refocus on the notion that
societies, whichever they may be, constitute singular processes of formation
at the same time as they generate self-descriptions. Consequently, as I also
observed earlier, ultimately it is the main theses of historical sociology that
provide the basis for this critical study of Jessé Souza’s interpretation. More
precisely: it is the critiques developed by Bertrand Badie (1992) of the well-
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 905 – 936, december, 2017
911
in the case studies presented in A ralé, which inevitably refer us to the hyper-
critical situation of critical theory, given that there seems to be no solution for
those immersed in these structures of domination and alienation. Weber and
Bourdieu are, at this point in Souza’s argument, his main guides with their
familiar doses of pessimism regarding the tragedy of modern culture and the
symbolic domination of capitalism, respectively.
Taking as a premise two fundamental elements to the sociological-his-
torical investigation of social formation, the process of modernity and its cur-
rent state, Jessé Souza’s critique of a wide variety of interpretations of Brazil
could be said to be guided by the general understanding that there is no uni-
versal ideal of society, European and North American, that all other societies
should reflect in their individual processes. Likewise there is no explanation
of the present contained in the past, as though the present obeys an internal
or external logic from which it cannot escape and over which it has no control.
In Souza’s view, all kinds of interpretations of Brazil, irrespective of
whether they are culturalist (Gilberto Freyre and Sérgio Buarque de Holanda) or
institutionalist (Caio Prado Júnior and Fernando Henrique Cardoso), share a com-
mon denominator in the understanding that an ideal definition exists of both
modernity and the historical realities that share this ideal. Brazil, however, is in
a situation of ‘backwardness,’ ‘deviation,’ ‘marginality’ and ‘peripherality’ vis-à-
vis this ideal. This raises the question: what ideal of modernity are we talking
about? Where and from whom does it derive? Answering this question is not dif-
ficult. The tradition of Brazilian thinkers (including those active today) have been
guided primarily by the hegemonic concept of modernity traceable in sociolo-
gists like Weber, Simmel, Parsons, Marx, Durkheim, Habermas and Luhmann,
who, despite the insurmountable differences between them, shared the more
general understanding of modern society, which can be summarized as follows:
a) State, market and civil society necessarily occupy mutually and fully differentiated
spheres, regulated exclusively by their own codes and dynamized by particular lo-
gics; b) the normativity that regulates the relations between individuals and between
them and the State and market are fully disenchanted, as well as protected from the
influence of non-rationalized worldviews and normative systems; and c) the public
and private spheres, for their part, are also fully separate, each ordered by particular
codes and logics, communicating solely through appropriate channels that maintain
unaltered the terms and rules of each of the domains (Tavolaro, 2005: 12).
912
their own societies (basically European and American) and concluded that there
was a universal symmetry to its process of increasing rationalization, espe-
cially at the level of the operation of their social systems (or orders or social
institutions), they also allowed themselves to be swayed by the overwhelming
power of their own creation: their concept of modernity. This concept, even in
the case of thinkers possessing a deep historical sensibility like Weber and Sim-
mel, to some extent ignores the elements contained in the event of modernity:
change, contingency, singularity, chance, conflict and so on. In other words, it
ignores the historical and sociological fact that contexts and their specificities,
many of which are irreducible, shape so-called universal patterns.
Consequently, these thinkers, who served as a theoretical inspiration to
Brazilian commentators, also failed to perceive that the processes of modernity
and modernization realized by European societies reflected their own singulari-
ties and differences. One such example is the historical fact that Puritan colonists
from England settling in American lands – who presumably shared similar cul-
tural, social and political practices – constituted a modern society with very dif-
ferent parameters to those established in their society of origin. Other examples
exist, based, indeed, on irreproachable analytical sources, as in the case of Toc-
queville’s analysis of the distinct nature of the modernization process of Ameri-
can institutions compared to their French counterparts, the analysis of Norbert
Elias (to whom I return later) on the peculiarities of the German civilizational
process compared to what unfolded in France and England. In sum, various ex-
amples corroborate the importance of the variable of singularity, context and
difference for understanding the modernity of any given society.
Comprehending these details is fundamental, since the argumentative
baseline of the most important theorists of the so-called 1930s generation – that
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 905 – 936, december, 2017
is, those who exerted a strong influence on the scientific interpretation and
everyday sense of modernity in Brazil – is strikingly cultural in kind. This cul-
turalist perspective, shared by these interpretative approaches, is maintained
largely as a result of the way in which Weber’s theory of modernity was received
in Brazil (Vianna, 1999: 174). This is explained by how Weber constructed his
theory, strongly based on a heuristic comparison of distinct historical realities
as a means to discern the set of elements that singularized the advance of the
modernizing process of western societies compared to a lower reach of this
same process in eastern societies. Unlike the economic emphasis displayed in
Marx’s approaches, his analysis also focused on the form in which this increas-
ing rationalization was motivated by determined cultural practices in tune with
the emergence of social orderings (capitalism, bureaucracy, the rational State,
and so on). Weber’s starting point, therefore, is cultural, although he repeat-
edly made the point that his intention was not to invert Marx’s analytic per-
spective: the internalization and actualization of a pattern of rational life col-
laborated in the institutionalization of modern reason.
article | edilene leal
913
914
ence and social critique was a necessary chapter in the writings of its authors.
But what takes on a much more important dimension is the fact that these
proposals escaped the confines of writing and invaded the physical and sym-
bolic world of government programs (Souza, 2011: 37). Consequently, describing
the analytic use of the concept of modernity informing these self-descriptive
tendencies of Brazil – its flawed modernity and its unparalleled singularity – can
help reveal their valorative motivations and their scientific misconceptions.
While the inspiration for these authors, especially Jessé Souza, from
whom we shall develop the argument of selective modernity, is the Weberian
notion of modernity, it makes little sense to resort to this kind of formulation.
According to Jessé Souza (2000a) himself, the concept of modernity mobilized
by Buarque de Holanda is not, essentially, that of Max Weber. The latter makes
clear that what emerges strongly in the comparison between cultures are their
singularities – that is, the characteristics that make one culture different from
another. Indeed it is this difference that made this culture possible in one way
and not in others. For Weber, a logic of development exists that traverses cul-
article | edilene leal
915
tures, a logic defined ever since the Ancient Greek discovery of reason and
extensively actualized by western cultures until reaching its most complete
definition under modernity. This actualization, however, happened and still
happens in the most diverse ways possible: here it suffices to recall that we do
not need the rationalized culture of Calvinist communities to develop a certain
pattern of subjective (internal) and objective rationalization (on the way to
institutionalization) during the period of the rise of cities in the Medieval west
(Weber, 2002). It was cities that promoted civil autonomy, non-legitimized de-
mocracy and trade, mainly through the rationalization of religious practices.
But even so, Italian cities evolved in a different way to French and English cit-
ies, though they were equally moving towards an increased and more complex
rationalization of their practical and theoretical domains. When this moment
was partially suspended due to the emergence of the patriarchal and patrimo-
nial State in all these cities, Weber does not refer to the ‘delay’ in the process
of rationalization, but rather to the selection of ideals that informed the social,
economic and political interests of dominant groups in the social hierarchy.
On this point, indeed, Jessé Souza has highlighted the fundamental ques-
tion in Weber: the historical process invariably occurs as a process of domination
and is simultaneously accompanied by a process of legitimization of the latter;
although they do not happen in a planned or intentional form, the contingencies
are, in each case, completed by an internal logic that designs and redesigns the
general and specific framework of societies. In all events, while there exists this
selectivity in the cultural processes actualizing the cognitive patterns of devel-
opment, Weber at no point in his argument needed to emphasize that in such-
and-such society modernity was selective, or more or less selective than in other
societies. Being selective is precisely how cultures follow their course. This being
so, it would not be a peculiarity that in the United States, for instance, a more
ample and quicker rationalization of society was selected even before the State
emerged; or that in England selection involved a more concomitant evolution of
these two spheres. In sum, being selective is a characteristic inherent to every
culture, not to Brazilian culture specifically. Why, then, consider Brazil to be the
country that developed a selective modernity compared to western cultures?
What prompted Jessé Souza to develop this line of argument?
In his book A modernização seletiva, he makes clear that this concept
initially arose out of his critique of the ‘atavistic culturalism’ of the ‘sociology
of inauthenticity’ developed principally by Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, 4 Ray-
mundo Faoro (2011: 822) and Roberto DaMatta. 5 Secondly, and perhaps most
importantly, he states that he was inspired by Gilberto Freyre’s conclusions
concerning the ‘Europeanization’ process of the nineteenth century, exten-
sively discussed in his book Sobrados e mucambos (1936). It should be emphasized,
therefore, that the conception that Brazil developed a selective modernization
is not only inspired by Weber, but mainly by Freyre, who was the first, in Souza’s
jessé souza: a relapse into the interpretation of universal modernity?
916
view, to perceive that Brazil is modern, but modern in a singular sense because
it was constituted through contextual aspects distinct from those selected by
other realities. This is why Freyre does not appear in the aforementioned work
as one of the representatives of the atavistic type of Brazilian sociology.
According to Souza, the central source of the sociology of inauthenticity
is the idea that the constitution of western modernity is unequivocal and uni-
versal: in other words, these thinkers of Brazil were guided by the theory of
modernization and thus believed that Brazil is not modern because it failed to
adequately and authentically internalize the values of modern culture. The
primary cause of this cultural inadequation is its Iberian origin. Thus, if we in
Brazil fail to reflect, ipsis litteris, the European type of modernity, then we are
not modern. Certainly, I think that Souza refutes this ideological and limited
vision of modernity, reminding us that social and cultural modernization meant
a process through which individuals defined conducts regulated by the inter-
nalization of civilizational standards. The paths constructed by societies to
attain this standard, however, are neither the same, nor simultaneous. They
depend on the ‘selective’ form by which each society, more specifically its dom-
inant social class, defines what is modern and civilized, and, inversely, what
should be avoided as pre-modern and uncivilized. The modern and the civilized
are not a work of nature, a deus ex machina of historical determination; they are
constructed within historical processes. Modernity is not a substantive entity,
as I pointed out earlier, but a discourse in the best Foucauldian sense. Moreover
the discourse that becomes dominant results from the interests of those groups
holding power, which makes it impossible to separate values from their social
institutions, their system of reproduction and their system of social stratifica-
tion, as though they were detachable from their constitutive realities and could
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 905 – 936, december, 2017
917
ernizing and bourgeois Brazilian revolution” (Souza, 2000a: 250) had begun. This
hypothesis of revolution is inspired by what Freyre more circumspectly called
a ‘Europeanization’ process, which was not limited to the skin-deep aspects of
civility (such as Holanda thought), but, on the contrary, extended to the insti-
tutionalization of market values and the State. Since then, Brazil has not wor-
ried itself endlessly over various possible valorative codes: it finally defined its
dominant code, namely, the code that provides the basis of modern western
culture: universal moral individualism. “Values are not transported like clothes.”
Perhaps this is now the moment to repeat this phrase as a mantra so that its
creator can hear it: by identifying a bourgeois revolutionary process in nine-
teenth-century Brazil and the consequent general introjection of universal
moral individualism into its institutions, Souza, seems to me, at the very least,
to adopt the position of someone who believes that not only values, but also
ready-made social structures, can be transported. Here it is worth citing a par-
agraph in its entirety in which the author claims that Brazil, like the European
nations and the United States, had fully developed “the cultural realizations of
western modernity”:
Contrary to what DaMatta thinks, since the modernizing revolution of the fi rst half of
the nineteenth century, Brazil has just one dominant valorative code: the code of western
moral individualism. Individualism as a moral value –not to be confused with the empi-
rical individual, common to all societies during all periods – is the alpha and omega
of all the cultural realizations of western modernity, spanning from the competitive
capitalist market to the liberal democratic State, and passing through the free press,
rational scientific discussion, the doctrine of subjective rights and any of the other
gains or positive aspects that we may imagine stemming from the passage from tra-
ditional to modern society (Souza, 2000a: 254, original italics).
This does not mean, however, that Brazil turned into a “modern, wealthy
and democratic country” in the same way as other modern western countries
became. Its modernizing revolution was not accompanied by democratic access
to its cultural, economic and political assets. Even so, Jessé Souza apprehends
the positivity of the event and immerses himself in it, driven by his keenness to
emphasize that Brazil is just as modern as any European country. This explains
why he develops arguments that even contradict his own starting point: name-
ly that Brazil had developed a selective modernity, and, if it is selective, then it
placed in motion modernizing elements distinct from those practiced by France
or England. It seems to me that inverting the argument made by the ‘sociology
of inauthenticity’ is unproductive or, at least, does not produce the critical and
coherent result expected.
Jessé Souza, however, oblivious, pursues his project of defending Brazil-
ian modernity. To this end, he takes from Freyre’s Casa-grande & senzala the
process of overcoming a patriarchal era6 in which the landowners and slaveown-
ers reigned supreme, unconcerned to give way to the social westernization in
jessé souza: a relapse into the interpretation of universal modernity?
918
which bastard children, the mulatos, were rising socially, culturally and eco-
nomically, becoming the avatar of impersonal modernity. For Souza, the Portu-
guese/Moor roots to Brazilian slavery, contrary to what Buarque de Holanda
had imagined, 7 possessed a pragmatic and functional particularity that re-
jected the essentialist premises of being white and male in order to place the
focus on feeling white and acting as a man. Thus, if the illegitimate son knew
how to act as and felt himself to be a white male, this was sufficient for him
to be treated practically as an equal. By itself, this formulation of Freyre (1992:
272) had already instigated much discussion. 8 Among the more interesting pos-
sibilities, we can ask whether there is any underlying Weberian inspiration and,
if not, why associate it with western moral individualism? Freyre has clearly
pragmatist analytic tendencies, since he centres on social contexts, rather than
conceptual universals, and rejects the premise of cultural ‘perfection,’ formula-
tions present in Weber’s reading of the western world. Universal moral indi-
vidualism – the Weberian concept elaborated through his analyses of the Puri-
tan agent who internalized values of self-containment and externalized the
rational domination of the world – does not seem to be the most consistent
outcome of this pragmatic process of social ascension. This is because Weber
constructs this concept in line with the Kantian legacy: it is the mark of a his-
toricization of universal reason insofar as it is not given to us a timeless fac-
ulty but constituted through a processual dynamic that reached a fundamental
moment of its history in which rational choices can be made for action: this
moment, according to Kant (1974), just as for Weber, was the Aufklärung, the
Age of Enlightenment.
Weber’s reply to the question “why was the modern person able to divest
himself of enchantments and adopt an ethical and responsible form of behav-
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 905 – 936, december, 2017
iour?” is thus: because the actuality of the present provides the possibilities
for this conduct to become established and even spread to all parts of the world.
When Jessé Souza, informed by a Weberian conception of modernity, believes
that what makes Gilberto Freyre the shrewdest commentator of Brazil is this
apprehension of the precise moment when Brazil also acquired these possi-
bilities and triggered the same modernizing and civilizing mechanisms of uni-
versal moral individualism, he ‘over-Weberianizes’ Freyre’s argument. And this
Weberianization of Freyre means that the basic fact in the argument in Casa-
grande & senzala and Sobrados e mucambos – namely that Brazilian modernization
conformed to its Moorish-Slavery inheritance and its singular type of social
stratification – the emphasis on singular contexts of modernity appears as one
explanatory fact among others.
For Freyre, it seems to me, Brazil’s modernization had developed in such
a particular way that even during the decline of rural patriarchalism and the
rise of urban social life in the nineteenth century, there was a certain transfer
of patriarchal power from the master of Casa-grande & senzala to the bourgeois
article | edilene leal
919
master and trader from the Sobrados e mucambos. So how can Freyre’s analyses
be invoked to support of the theory that, already in the nineteenth century,
Brazil had activated its modernizing revolution?
Before Souza’s investigation takes this turn, however, I agree with at least
two of his analytic premises: the first is that western modernity can assume
singular configurations in accordance with the context that constitutes it; the
second is that this singularity appears in the ‘selective’ form – I prefer to call
contingent – with which each culture elects the social structure that will cor-
respond to the flagship of modernization; examples include the United States
choosing civil society as its base, while France identified one of its main allies
of modernization in its political force. What would Brazil’s particularity be, in
Souza’s view? It continues to be the same ‘atavistic culturalism’ that he himself
criticized in the sociology of inauthenticity, insofar as he reprises the idea of
Portuguese and Moorish slavery as the predominant vectors influencing Brazil-
ian modernization. If the Portuguese who arrived here were not the same me-
dieval Iberians who had visions of paradise, they were certainly not slavers
typical of Moorish slavery either. If this argument is unconvincing, what can be
said of the argument that endorses, with a certain elegance, the idea that Brazil
entered the select world of modern nations via a patriarchal society that allowed
the social ascension of the mulato, generating a modern bourgeois revolution.
It is true that, on one hand, in support of this conclusion Souza cites a Webe-
rian idea difficult to contest: values are not separate from their institutions. In
other words, the values of European modernity that penetrated nineteenth-
century Brazil reconstituted its social institutions by valorising impersonality,
requiring workers who were willing to “engage in the endeavour of moderniza-
tion,” irrespective of colour. At the same time, though, he produces hasty ana-
lytic generalizations and historical results that seem to forget the fact that
values are not transported and, above all, are not adapted to varied contexts
without themselves and the institutions formed by them undergoing profound
alterations. Evidence of this forgetting is found in the following passage:
It seems difficult to argue with the assertion that Brazil is modern – and
modern not just in superficial appearance, but in its social structures. The idea
that patriarchalism was a formative dimension of Brazil superseded by the rise
jessé souza: a relapse into the interpretation of universal modernity?
920
who invests in the comparison between western societies and the rest, empha-
sizing the advancing rationalization and simultaneously waning irrationaliza-
tion in the former, Elias is concerned with stressing a certain persistence of
civilizing development coordinated by the requirements of privilege and distinc-
tion (Souza, 2000a: 49). Various possibilities exist for accessing modernity, there-
fore, keeping in mind that rationalization, rather than assuming the lead role,
becomes dependent on the way in which each figuration (each society) develops
the relation between social constraint and habitus. In this sense, contrary to an
interpretation that posits rationalization as the inescapable direction of history
and rationality as the ultimate meaning of civilization – so particular to Weber’s
analyses – Elias flatly refuses to understand western development as a homog-
enous, universal or unambiguous standard for the rest of the world, functioning
as its cultural mirror. Instead, paradoxically, he emphasizes its concrete, spe-
cific and selective formations – that is, its processes of civilizing modernization.
It is precisely this insight, strongly present in Jessé Souza’s concept of se-
lective modernity, that enables us to stress one of the most fertile aspects of his
article | edilene leal
921
922
spectrum of contemporary authors11 set out from the premise that Brazil is mod-
ern, but that, die to its structuring around the inequality of economic, social and
cultural conditions, it developed the selective, peripheral and even negative type
of modernity. This critical analysis is amply explored in A ralé brasileira: quem é e
como vive (Souza, 2011) and in A tolice da inteligência brasileira: ou como o país se deixa
manipular pela elite (Souza, 2015). These books generally seem to continue his
particular line of studies, primarily begun with the publication of A modernização
brasileira. His critique of the classic interpretations of Brazil once again underlies
his argument and undoubtedly contributes to the definition of what he takes to
be the central problem to be considered in Brazilian modernity, namely the prob-
lem of inequality and social exclusion. The question that accompanies him is:
what mechanisms lead to the formation of the socially numerous group of people
living on the edge of the economic and moral preconditions needed to compete
for the ‘best places’ in all kinds of social, political, economic and cultural spaces?
This form in which Brazilian society is structured – that is, through the distinc-
tion between one class, the ralé, the riffraff, “excluded from all physical and sym-
article | edilene leal
923
bolic opportunities and all the other social classes that are, albeit differentially,
included” – results in the main obstacle for Brazil to become an effectively mod-
ern country. What interests me in Souza’s analysis, especially here, is his discus-
sion of the causes of this limit to Brazil’s modernity: rejecting the explanation of
the Iberian origin developed by the authors of the ‘sociology of inauthenticity,’
he develops the thesis of ‘selective modernity,’ according to which the Brazilian
process of modernization was devoid of a traditional morality comparable to the
morality that structured the European societies and was shaped by a recent past
of slavery that still has living implications in the present. Souza discusses this
thesis in detail in order to stress the fact that, here in Brazil, certain aspects were
privileged in detriment to others, for example, the personal aspect in detriment
to the impersonal (Souza, 2000a: 258), the specific type of “Islamic slavery associ-
ated with the peculiarity of the essential inhumanity of the slave,” despite the
type of slavery effected by American modernization and the like. In A ralé bra-
sileira he writes:
Rather than the classic opposition between workers and the bourgeoisie, what we
have here, in a peripherally modern society like Brazil’s, as our ‘central conf lict,’
both social and political, one that overrides the importance of all others, is the
opposition between a class excluded from all physical and symbolic opportunities
for social recognition and all the other social classes that are included, albeit
differentially. While Brazilian society remains oblivious to this challenge, we
shall always be moderns in appearance only, a faltering, unjust modernity, pettily
economic and economicist (Souza, 2011: 25).
It is impossible not to agree with Jessé Souza (2011: 25) concerning the
need for us to develop “a radically new perception of the central problems that
challenge Brazil as a society.” However, while the perception must be radically
new, we cannot simply repeat the old concepts and analyses in different guis-
es, including here the concept of selective modernity, which repeats the same
normative and idealized dimension of universal modernity criticized by the
author himself. Bertrand Badie (1992: 344) argues that one possible explanation
for the difficulty that sociology, historical sociology included, faces when trying
to escape this historical shortfall in the interpretation of so-called dependent
societies derives from the fact that these societies:
are marked by the overlapping of two histories and, in addition, two constructions
of time: their own and that of the western world. The social dynamic of dependent
societies is deeply marked by this duality: the importation of practices and models –
political, economic and social – is equivalent, at the same time, to the importance of
another history and also leads to the coexistence of two histories.
924
direct its evolution. And this is why his critical sociology rejects any idea of
trajectory, as a single abstract line of development, determining social realities;
he also rejects the idea that the present or future of a society – the structuring
of its social dynamic, its culture and its politics – results necessarily or dialec-
tically from its past. He thus rejects the idea that Brazil is not modern because
of its Iberian past. From the viewpoint of his interpretation of how the Brazilian
social dynamic, its institutions and social systems, is structured, however, we
can observe that Souza makes the same kind of mistakes that, Badie (1992: 346)
suggests, we find in other thinkers from historical sociology like Theda Skocpol
and Perry Anderson – notably the theoretical mistake of thinking that Brazilian
modernity is defective (or deficient or negative) because its social dynamic is
marked by social inequality, which, unlike other societies with which it is com-
pared, is so extreme that it impedes the normalized establishment of modern
institutions like democracy and citizenship. Primarily taking Bourdieu’s theory
of symbolic domination as a baseline, therefore, Souza argues that the form in
which the institutional profiles, class practices and individual actions are re-
produced and transform ultimately obeys the logic of capital, power and infor-
mation embedded in economic, political and cultural capital respectively. More-
over, this reproduction, functioning at both a macro level of social institutions
and systems, and a micro level of social actions and practices, continues its
modernizing course in peripheral societies, like Brazil, without the consequenc-
es of its modus operandi interfering in its development.
The undeniable merit of Jessé Souza’s thought needs to be emphasized,
especially his powerful critique of the ‘naturalization’ of the inequalities rife in
peripheral societies. We are modern, but unequally modern. And the condition of
inequality is produced and reproduced by the structures of modernity. It is not
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 905 – 936, december, 2017
this condition, therefore, that makes us more or less modern, but the fact that we
have developed a ‘precarious habitus,’ one that characterizes, in fact, both cen-
tral and peripheral societies. Here, though, the system of exclusion is even more
dramatic and accentuated. This concept, elaborated by Souza through a consist-
ent synthesis of Taylor and Bourdieu, reflects a certain pattern of action of indi-
viduals and groups disconnected from the demands of capitalist utilitarianism,
which impedes these individuals or groups from being recognized in terms of
their capacity to be productive, their dignity as a citizen. It should be emphasized,
furthermore, that this precarious and highly unequal dimension characteristic
of our social dynamic ensures its perpetuation in a vicious cycle, since its condi-
tions of reproduction are found at the very base of modern structures. Conse-
quently, Jessé Souza moves to the hypercritique of Bourdieu, inducing us to think
that this vicious reproduction of the structures of domination of modern society
makes any transformation of practices, and thus the conquest of freedom, im-
possible. If this interpretation of Souza is correct, his critical theory – in general
sensitive to historical nuances – would seem to forget that it is not societies, their
article | edilene leal
925
institutions and their systems that act, but rather individuals and social groups.
Societies, institutions and systems cannot be disconnected from the various
ways through which human beings give them meaning, orienting their actions
and explaining them. Furthermore, social theories and their theorists are supra-
human entities that simultaneously apprehend the present, past and future of
societies.
Nevertheless, to be fair to Jessé Souza, I believe that his perception of Bra-
zil and other modern formations seems to change positively in A tolice da in-
teligência brasileira, since he returns once more to Weber’s ideas in order to argue
in favour of the generalizing condition of singular modernization of all societies
around the planet. In his critique of what he calls scientific racism, that is, the
successful attempt, still at work today, of modernization theory to identify the
inhabitants of advanced societies as superior ‘people’ and the inhabitants of
peripheral societies as inferior ‘subpeople,’ Souza (2015: 24) argues that this
theory left behind, deliberately, the Weberian criticisms of rationalization, espe-
cially capitalist rationalization. As well as having ignored the subtleties of We-
ber’s argumentation in relation to the singular and contingent conditions of all
historical processes. An example of this singularity, overlooked by the advocates
of universal modernization, is the type of hypocritical protestant that consti-
tuted North American modernization; the latter is certainly not the same type
that set off modernization in England. And if this figure is not the same, this is
because the modus operandi of a culture cannot be disconnected from the modus
operandi of its corresponding institutions; we cannot argue that particular socie-
ties function as formative mirrors for all others. Consequently, the thesis that
the cultural singularity of Brazil was responsible for the selective, backward and
peripheral type of modernity is clearly rejected by Jessé Souza. He writes: “Today
this thesis of Brazilian ‘cultural singularity,’ imagined in an absolute way as a peo-
ple with unique and incomparable characteristics – for good or bad – is like a
‘second skin’ for all Brazilians, intellectuals or otherwise” (Souza, 2015: 29; origi-
nal italics).
As we have be seen, Souza rejects the thesis of Brazilian cultural singu-
larity. However, he goes further. He also demonstrates that the condition of
singularity that marks each and every process of social formation (European
societies, South America, North American society and so on) does not impede
us from being able to apprehend, amid their differences, what they share on
common. In other words, Souza is interested in apprehending the general
through the theoretical and empirical study of social phenomena. To this end,
he embarked on a broad and consistent study of contemporary social theory,
both national and international, in order to elaborate a “critical theory of mod-
ernization” that enables us to comprehend what “is universal in the symbolic
reproduction of capitalism as a whole.” He critically studied the thought of
Florestan Fernandes as, in his view, the only Brazilian theorist able to incorpo-
jessé souza: a relapse into the interpretation of universal modernity?
926
rate Brazil within the global analytic framework of capitalism, yet unable to
apprehend the subtle mechanisms and hierarchies that align this global repro-
duction of capitalism. He also explored the ideas of Niklas Luhmann who,
though responsible for introducing the theme of social exclusion/inclusion
into the debate on global society, remained in tune with the theory of mod-
ernization when he expla ined the high rates of social exclusion in peripheral
societies like Brazil by the persistence of premodern tensions in their formation,
such as corruption, in a context of dynamic and effective modern institutions.
What, though, allowed Jessé Souza to make progress, I think, in his goal
of apprehending the generalizing schema of modern societies is his critique of
the limits to Bourdieu’s theory. Given the impossibility of reproducing Souza’s
interpretative schema for the Bourdieusian theory of capitalism here, I shall
concentrate on the question that directly interests us: the social disputes for
scarce resources, in all capitalist societies, are decided by the differential access
to economic, cultural and political capitals. In other words, irrespective of
whether we are in England, Mexico or Brazil, the group with school education
and intellectually privileged family inheritance (cultural capital) will compose
the modern middle class specialized in ‘intellectual labour,’ in clear contrast to
the modern working class responsible for ‘manual labour.’ In all these societies
the schemas naturalizing these social differences are also repeated, premised
on the idea that the material privileges and ideals held by the middle class result
from the innate talent or merit of individuals. In Souza’s view (2015: 154), these
schemas function as mechanisms legitimizing social inequalities the world over
and, given that they are subtly actualized, require deep critical scrutiny in order
to perceive, for example, that the very notion that Brazil is backward and corrupt
compared to advanced and ‘ethical’ societies is one more way of rendering the
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 905 – 936, december, 2017
927
928
NOTES
1 This article is a reduced version of a text presented at the
Social Thought Seminar of the 40 th Congress of ANPOCS.
I wish to thank Professor André Botelho for his criticisms
and suggestions without which this version would not
have been possible. I stress, however, that any errors and
shortcomings that may still exist are entirely my own
responsibility.
2 Dur ing the f inal decades of the twentieth centur y, the
debate on modernity made signif icant advances, espe-
cially through the formulation of historical sociology and,
in particular, Shmuel Eisenstadt’s theory of multiple mo-
dernities. “The basic hypothesis of the multiple moder-
nities approach is that the modern institutional orders
(which developed with the institutionalization of the
cultural and political orders of modernity) did not develop
uniformly around the world – contrar y to the presuppo-
sitions of the classic modernization theories of the 1950s
and even the older classic of sociology, like Spencer and,
to some extent, Durkheim, which predominated even in
Weber’s time. Rather they developed in multiple patterns,
in models of continually shifting multiple modernities”
(Eisenstadt, 2010: 11).
3 Other commentators of Brazil concur with Souza’s critique
of the atavistic culturalism of the classics and of more
recent contributions, including Roberto DaMatta (cited in
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 905 – 936, december, 2017
929
930
931
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Badie, Bertrand. (1992). Análisis comparado y sociología
histórica. Revista Internacional de Ciencias Sociales, 133, p.
341-350.
Blaj, Ilana. (1998). Sérgio Buarque de Holanda: historiador
da cultura mater ial. In: Candido, Antonio (org.). Sérgio
Buarque de Holanda e o Brasil. São Paulo: Fundação Perseu
Abramo.
Botelho, André & Schawarcz, Lilian. (orgs.). (2009). Um
enigma chamado Brasil: 29 intérpretes e um país. São Paulo:
Companhia das Letras.
Bourdieu, Pierre. (2011). A distinção: crítica social do julga-
mento. 2 ed. Porto Alegre: Zouk.
Campante, Rubens Goyotá. (2003). O patrimonialismo em
Faoro e em Weber e a sociologia Brasileira. Dados – Revis-
ta de Ciências Sociais, Rio de Janeiro, 46/1, p. 153-193.
Candido, Antonio. (1998). A visão política de Sérgio Buar-
que de Holanda. In: Sérgio Buarque de Holanda e o Brasil. São
Paulo: Fundação Perseu Abramo.
jessé souza: a relapse into the interpretation of universal modernity?
932
133, p. 411-428.
Eisenstadt, Sahmuel. (1979). Revolução e a transformação
das sociedades. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar.
Eisenstadt, Sahmuel. (1969). Múltiplas modernidades: en-
saios. Lisboa: Livros Horizonte.
Eisenstadt, Sahmuel. (1968). Modernização e mudança social.
Belo Horizonte: Editora do Professor.
Elias, Norbert. (1997). Os alemães. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar.
Elias, Norbert. (1994). O processo civilizador, v. I. Rio de Ja-
neiro: Zahar.
Elias, Norbert. (1993). O processo civilizador, v. II. Rio de
Janeiro: Zahar.
Faoro, Raimundo. (2001). Os donos do poder: formação do
patronato político brasileiro. 3ed. São Paulo: Globo.
article | edilene leal
933
934
935
Weber, Max. (2001). The protestant ethic and the spirit of ca-
pitalism. New York: Routledge.
Weber, Max. (1998). A ética protestante e o espírito do capi-
talismo. 14 ed. São Paulo: Pioneira.
Weber, Max. (1982). Rejeições religiosas do mundo e suas
direções. In: Ensaios de Sociologia. 5 ed. Rio de Janeiro: LTC/
Editora.
Wegner, Robert. (1999). Os Estados Unidos e a fronteira
na obra de Sérgio Buarque de Holanda. In: Souza, Jesse.
(org.). O malandro e o protestante: a tese weberiana e a singu-
laridade cultural brasileira. Brasília: UNB.
Wittgenstein, Ludwing. (1995). Tratado lógico-filosófico/in-
vestigações filosóficas. Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulben-
kian.
jessé souza: a relapse into the interpretation of universal modernity?
936
sociólogas Alice Rangel de Paiva Abreu, Helena Hirata e Maria Rosa Lombardi,
propriamente de uma comparação entre países “tão difíceis de comparar”. A
bem dizer, a obra, publicada oportunamente na Coleção Mundo do Trabalho,
sob a coordenação de Ricardo Antunes, fornece uma visão geral das complexas
relações entre trabalho, cuidado, cidadania, ética, política do corpo e políticas
sociais no Brasil e na França. É como se as comparações ficassem um pouco
por conta do leitor, munido de um arsenal de excelente qualidade, informativo
e analítico, sobre as problemáticas das desigualdades de gênero, das relações
sociais de sexo e de uma cartografia sobre o lugar das mulheres e dos homens
no mundo, aliás, nos mundos do trabalho.
A obra está dividida em seis partes (Entrecruzar as desigualdades; Medir
as desigualdades; Trabalho e uso do tempo; O gênero das carreiras artísticas e
científicas; Cuidado, dinâmicas familiares e profissionais; Cuidado, políticas
sociais e cidadania) e 23 capítulos. Os temas se estendem às relações sociais
de desigualdade no cuidar; às experiências do feminino frente a desafios e
múltiplas possibilidades e conquistas profissionais; às dinâmicas familiares;
ensaio de leitura: intersecções e correlações no mundo do trabalho e do cuidar (brasil/frança)
940
941
I
A discussão sobre o cuidado, o care anglo-saxão – o anglicismo transposto para
todo o território europeu, com algumas exceções como Portugal –, ocupa duas
partes inteiras como fecho da obra. São elas a Parte V e a Parte VI, já nomeadas
acima. Ali se discutem, em quase uma centena de páginas, as imbricações do
care em relação às dinâmicas familiares e profissionais e, sob este último as-
pecto, a interação entre profissão, mercado de trabalho, políticas sociais e cida-
dania. O fecho reservado às duas partes finais da obra é muito feliz, pois justa-
mente o primeiro capítulo convida à leitura sobre o cuidado e sua imbricação
(termo caro a Danièle Kergoat (2016)) nas relações sociais. De fato e de direito
(invariavelmente contra a mulher), a relação histórica entre homens e mulheres
ao longo dos séculos jamais dissociou trabalho e gênero do cuidado, ou do cui-
dar, particularmente do cuidar doméstico – tornando sólida e quase imbatível,
também séculos afora, a assimetria de gênero (capítulo 8) e a dominação.
Esse é um ponto de honra para toda a obra. A responsabilidade das mu-
lheres pelas tarefas concretas de cuidar do outro (a criança, o idoso), combina-
da aos valores associados à feminilidade, aprofundaram, historicamente, as
desigualdades e discriminações no mundo do trabalho. Este será o recorte, his-
tórico e sociológico, de textos teóricos ou analíticos e sólidos estudos empíricos,
em que se destacam os capítulos: “O cuidado e a imbricação das relações so-
ciais”, de Danièle Kergoat, já citado (capítulo 1); “Carinho, limpeza e cuidado:
experiências de migrantes brasileiras”, de Adriana Piscitelli (capítulo 4); “O
cuidado em domicílio na França e no Brasil”, de Helena Hirata (capítulo 16);
“Cuidados e confiança”, de Ângelo Soares) (capítulo 18); “Política da presença:
as questões temporais e sexuadas do cuidado”, de Marc Bessin (capítulo 20);
“Políticas públicas diante do envelhecimento”, de Guita Debert (capítulo 21) e
“O cuidado e a nova agenda de combate à violência no Brasil”, de Bila Sorj (ca-
pítulo 22). Nesses e em outros capítulos, seja a ênfase sobre o care ou sobre o
trabalho, ressalta a noção de que o que está em jogo é a imbricação entre esses
fenômenos. Todo indivíduo, em algum momento de sua vida, necessitará de
atenção ou terá que prestar algum tipo de cuidado a alguém, ou seja, ao longo
de nossas vidas seremos provedores e beneficiários do trabalho de cuidado.
Não há novatas no tema. Textos obrigatórios, em outras publicações, re-
velam caminhos já trilhados com firmeza. Se nos ativermos a anos recentes,
Helena Hirata e Nadya Guimarães (2012: 1) apresentaram o tema a novos leitores
e leitoras: “cuidar do outro, preocupar-se, estar atento às suas necessidades,
todos esses diferentes significados [...] estão presentes na definição do [cuida-
ensaio de leitura: intersecções e correlações no mundo do trabalho e do cuidar (brasil/frança)
942
943
II
Importante é reter, ao longo dos vários capítulos, o foco teórico, analítico e
densamente empírico sobre as desigualdades e discriminações sistemáticas da
divisão social do trabalho entre os sexos e as reflexões, ao longo de todo o
volume, sobre as hierarquias que constituem “sistemas de gênero”. Se procu-
rarmos entender a historicidade de tais sistemas, estaremos próximos de cap-
tar as razões de o trabalho de cuidado estar restrito basicamente à mulher.
Para Adriana Piscitelli (capítulo 4), a constituição de sistemas de gênero, no
tocante ao mundo do trabalho, produziu intersecções responsáveis por “desti-
nar” a mulher a certos “nichos ocupacionais”. Se retomarmos Godelier, o “viver
em sociedade” veio historicamente a conferir legitimidade a um amplo espec-
tro de atividades laborais, mas não ofereceu à mulher a opção de querer ou não
exercer a função de cuidar do outro.
Instigante nesse sentido, o trabalho de Piscitelli sobre as narrativas das
trabalhadoras sexuais brasileiras na Espanha. “Nesses setores altamente mer-
cantilizados da indústria do sexo, as qualidades que essas entrevistadas des-
tacam para afirmar a ‘brasilidade’ são a afetuosidade, o cuidado, a amabilidade
e a alegria” (p. 51, ênfase nossa), características que refletem, segundo a auto-
ra, o caráter por assim dizer doméstico, “carinhoso”, das relações estabelecidas
entre essas mulheres e seus clientes nesse nicho ocupacional agora legalizado
ensaio de leitura: intersecções e correlações no mundo do trabalho e do cuidar (brasil/frança)
944
945
946
947
III
As portas que conduzem ao cuidado são transpostas nos capítulos finais. Será
tarefa menos árdua abri-las agora, com a ajuda dos capítulos iniciais da obra,
sobre as imbricações e interseccionalidades entre o care e os processos relativos
a classes, raças e sexos. As partes V e VI, totalmente voltadas para temas e
problemas do cuidado, são dedicadas à discussão das condições sociais, eco-
nômicas e políticas sob as quais a atividade do cuidar é oferecida, organizada
e vivenciada. As análises se abrem facilmente à leitura, permitindo o entrecru-
zamento entre fatos e fontes em diferentes níveis e cenários.
ensaio de leitura: intersecções e correlações no mundo do trabalho e do cuidar (brasil/frança)
948
949
950
lhados por Bila Sorj, a partir de uma pesquisa com Mulheres da Paz (MP), um
programa social de prevenção e ações afirmativas, em favelas e periferias no
Rio de Janeiro, iniciado em 2008 e encerrado alguns anos depois.
O programa (MP), desencadeado pelo Ministério da Justiça no Rio de
Janeiro, envolveu o treinamento de mulheres residentes em periferias e favelas
para atuar junto a jovens em “situação de risco”, de modo a encaminhá-los a
projetos de capacitação profissional. O Programa foi inspirado, segundo Sorj,
na ideia de promover e institucionalizar os movimentos de mães – a exemplo
das Mães de Acari, um grupo de mulheres da Zona Norte carioca que buscava
punição aos assassinos de seus filhos, em 1990. Ainda que antecipasse o enga-
jamento das mulheres na promoção de uma “cultura da paz” (p. 260), seus
objetivos não foram alcançados. Vários foram os obstáculos, entre esses, sem-
pre citados, os conflitos de interesses e o despreparo, na capacitação, para
interagir com os jovens. O capítulo discorre sobre as limitações, potencialidades
e dificuldades de consolidação e expansão de um programa que poderia ter
tido sucesso, mas malogrou. A autora vai à raiz dos problemas enfrentados na
registro de pesquisa | luiz antonio de castro santos e lina faria
951
IV
Coletâneas que denotam o “cuidado” em sua consecução, competência na or-
ganização do conjunto e produção autoral de excelente qualidade exigem uma
resenha igualmente cuidadosa. Foi o que procuramos realizar. O que esperamos
é que haja nova edição em breve, como merecem organizadoras e autoras. Se-
rá bem-vinda a preparação de um índice onomástico para a segunda edição.
Nessa ocasião, do mesmo modo como a comunidade científica tem procurado
rechaçar as incursões das áreas biomédicas sobre a conduta ética da pesquisa
ensaio de leitura: intersecções e correlações no mundo do trabalho e do cuidar (brasil/frança)
952
953
NOTA
1 No original: “Plus j’avançais et plus je trouvais que l’éco-
nomie ne pouvait pas m’expliquer la formation des socié-
tés. Quelque chose de plus fondamental traversait toutes
les pratiques, tous les mouvements de l’existence et don-
nait sens aussi bien à la place des hommes et des femmes
dans les différents champs sociaux que dans les maisons”.
REFERÊNCIAS BI BLIOGRÁFICAS
954
955
956
957
962
dem ser lidas como narrativa paralela, olha para frente com esperança e só
que suplementa a narrativa maior, pois vê ruínas em volta e para trás. A mo-
também despertam grande interesse; dernidade capenga que nos foi dado
não são anotações meramente acadê- viver encontra em Lima um crítico
micas, a ser deixadas de lado na leitu- feroz: se o subúrbio o enternecia (p.
ra. Daí a empatia imediata do leitor, 187), mesmo nele se encontra deslo-
que se entrega de imediato ao livro e cado, pois tem no centro uma sorte
passa a compartilhar os sonhos, os de- de ideal do ego que a um só tempo o
sejos e as frustrações desse persona- atrai e o deixa de fora, o expulsa.
gem, emblemático, repito, que é Lima, Uma estética popular se afirma em
o Rio, o Brasil, com a “ternura [...] imen- seus escritos, nos mostra Lilia. Se “a
sa e dolorosa” (p. 422) que foi a de Lima, rua é seu elemento” (p. 301) é da rua
que é a de Lilia e passa a ser nossa no que vem sua linguagem, desconstru-
decorrer da leitura. tora do cânone vigente, é na forma
É difícil escolher um ponto que sin- da “redundância narrativa” (Silviano
tetize uma vida como a de Lima, uma Santiago apud Lilia, p. 306) que essa
biografia como a de Lilia, pois são múl- linguagem encontra espaço para se
tiplos os caminhos que a vida e o tex- legitimar enquanto língua literária
to abrem e percorrem. Ressalto, de que, por sua vez, criará uma “tradi-
início, a questão (auto)biográfica, da qual ção afortunada” na literatura brasi-
a biógrafa não poderia fugir em se tra- leira depois de Lima e até hoje. À
tando do escritor e sua obra. Não es- redundância se une o “inacabamen-
pere o leitor o biografismo do tipo a to” – em todos os sentidos da palavra
vida explica a obra. Nada disso, mesmo – dos textos de Lima como forma de
porque “Lima se transformava em seus vida, como precariedade da existên-
próprios personagens assim como o cia e da escrita, em firme contrapo-
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 961 – 963, dezembro, 2017
oposto acontecia”, diz Lilia (p. 466). sição à forma helênica e bem-aca-
Com cuidado e minúcia, demonstra bada dos textos de seus contempo-
como se conectam, se chocam e cor- râneos reunidos na ABL, instituição
rem paralelas e misturadas vida e lite- que atua como objeto estranho e
ratura, a exemplo da análise que faz familiar para Lima, desejado e repu-
sobre “Vida e morte de M. J. Gonzaga de diado, fantasma que o irá assombrar
Sá e de Lima Barreto” (p. 467). até o fim.
Para tanto, outra questão se coloca: A questão racial, ponto alto da bio-
a capacidade da autora de dar forma grafia, nunca foi tratada com tanto
ao que se poderia chamar de uma poé- rigor crítico e teórico, em nenhum
tica do subúrbio, como lugar de atuação autor ou nenhuma autora da litera-
do escritor, ou melhor, um “entrelugar” tura brasileira como é nesse livro.
onde se movimenta em meio aos “des- Lilia, especialista maior e referência
troços como recordações” (Lima apud no assunto, trata-o longe dos luga-
Lilia, p. 187). A história é para Lima co- res-comuns com que é tratado, vai
mo o foi para Benjamin ou o seu anjo: pouco a pouco entrelaçando dados
resenha | wander melo miranda
963
Recebida em 30/9/2017 |
Aprovada em 2/10/2017
Rafael Nascimento I
Brasil. Para o crítico, tanto os comentá- carioca nas décadas seguintes. O acir-
rios jornalísticos acerca do dia a dia ramento das forças políticas – culmi-
quanto as melodias alegres que asso- nando no colapso da monarquia e nas
mavam dos pianos teriam em seu esti- subsequentes bravatas republicanas –,
lo breve e gracioso a medida exata de as sucessivas reformas urbanas e a
um “caldo de cultura” responsável por emergência das classes médias foram
conduzir, com “inequívoco sabor”, a apenas alguns dos fatores que dariam
nação brasileira à modernidade. Embo- novos contornos à palpitante cidade do
ra aspire a certa generalização, a afir- Rio.
mação de Wisnik é particularmente É justamente sobre esses fazeres e
exemplar quando referida ao lugar e ao essa cidade que se detêm os livros Po-
momento em que tais atividades ga- rous city, de Bruno Carvalho, e Making
nharam autores do quilate de Machado samba, de Marc Hertzman. Mais que
de Assis e Chiquinha Gonzaga: o Rio de simples afinidade temática, os dois
Janeiro no final do século XIX. Não obs- historiadores compartilham o interes-
tante, precisá-la no espaço e no tempo se pelo tema da modernização e mo-
cidade, história e cultura: dois olhares sobre o rio de janeiro
966
967
968
969
REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS
Do meio para o fim dos anos 1960, sal- sido. Chico Buarque de Holanda não se
vo engano, Sérgio Buarque de Holanda apresenta publicamente como “o filho
passou a se apresentar pública e ane- do Sérgio”. E como nota Pedro Meira
doticamente como o simples “Pai do Monteiro, sociólogo e docente na Prin-
Chico”. A referência ao mais famoso ceton University, em “Num fiapo de
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 971 – 975, dezembro, 2017
dos seus filhos poderia ser um sinal de tempo: Chico, Sérgio e Benjamin”, ca-
modéstia risonha ou o reconhecimen- pítulo de Signo e desterro: Sérgio Buarque
to de que uma nova forma de lidar com de Holanda e a imaginação do Brasil, há
a presença de alguns intelectuais no qualquer coisa de ausência constante
espaço público brasileiro, especial- dessa figura paterna na obra do filho,
mente os artistas da música brasileira – que se recupera, talvez, nos esforços
cada vez mais, a partir de então, me- literários do filho escritor. Essa distân-
diados pela publicidade de massa e cia do pai também já havia sido men-
alguma devoção – colocava em ocaso cionada no documentário Raízes do
tipos como o dele, talhado em outro Brasil (2004), de Nelson Pereira dos
momento da história social e cultural Santos, por todos os filhos, valorizan-
do país. do, aliás, o papel da mãe, Maria Amélia,
Porém, se “o pai do Chico” assim se na vida pública e intelectual do pai e
apresentava, a recíproca talvez tenha da prole dos Buarque de Holanda.
demorado muito tempo para ser públi- Esses detalhes mencionados permi-
ca e verdadeira e, quiçá, nem tenha tem percorrer um grande arco tempo-
sobre signo e desterro, de pedro meira monteiro, e os futuros dos passados possíveis
972
ral tendo a figura de Sérgio Buarque de ser debatidos e retomados até o mo-
como guia e ajudam a enfeixar um mento da conversão em “Dr. Sérgio”,
duplo problema, suscitado pela leitura professor catedrático de história da
de Signo e desterro: 1) de um lado, o que civilização brasileira na Universidade
de novo pode haver em revisitar a obra de São Paulo, já um tanto distante da-
de Sérgio Buarque de Holanda? 2) de- queles anos 1930, entremeado por
corrência disso e dos dias que vivemos, obras de, para alguns, maior rigor, en-
há algo a ser dito sobre a presença e a volvido na institucionalização univer-
obra dos intelectuais na vida pública sitária que não marcou sua formação.
hoje? Essa conversão se dá sob as críticas da
Entre “o pai do Chico” e “o filho do forma ensaio da qual fora praticante e,
Sérgio” – esta última expressão é mi- dali a um tanto, convertido na curiosa
nha – decorrem-se em Signo e desterro figura de pai do Outro Buarque de Ho-
nove capítulos divididos em três partes landa nos anos 1960 − algo que apare-
(“Política familiar”, “O inexistente ce no interessante capítulo do livro,
americano” e “A palavra e o tempo”) “Sérgio Buarque de Holanda e as pala-
com uma imersão na obra mais conhe- vras (evocação de Wittgenstein)”.
cida e controversa do pai, sociólogo e Em meio àqueles nove capítulos e
historiador. E como assinala Meira um epílogo (denominado “Raízes do
Monteiro, Raízes do Brasil se mostraria século XXI: Wisnik e o horizonte do en-
um livro incômodo para Sérgio Buar- saio”), entretanto, também se passa o
que, que com ele teve que se haver na tempo. E vale recordar o que novamen-
labuta da mudança dos tempos, entre te suscita Meira Monteiro: o tempo, na
1936 e sua versão definitiva, de 1956. O forma ensaio, é ponto de fuga (insular,
tempo e as tomadas de posição, bem na metáfora da ilha, que o autor em-
como as críticas e os espaços percorri- prega), porque não se atreve à precisão,
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 971 – 975, dezembro, 2017
dos pelo autor, lhe exigiram reescrita, mas quer dizer algo a respeito do pas-
precisões, supressões e defesas, num sado sobre o qual se debruça (por
intervalo de preocupações anteriores, exemplo, as matrizes ibéricas e o fan-
que começa com um jovem de menos tasma colonial brasileiro), acerca do
de 20 anos lançado no espaço de rea- presente em que se encontra (um entre-
lização por excelência do intelectual, guerras mundiais, um intervalo demo-
– o jornal, o tradicional Correio Paulista- crático interrompido nacionalmente) e
no – passando pelo ofício da crítica li- se arrisca, como poucos, a dizer algo
terária sob os influxos do Modernismo sobre a direção do futuro, para onde es-
de 1922, alcançando-o posteriormente vai a matéria, no caso, o sentido desta
como o autor de Raízes do Brasil na ca- nação. Vale recordar: Raízes do Brasil é
sa dos trinta anos. sobre o Brasil, e o devir que ele se arris-
Mas a gravitação da obra e de suas ca a tratar talvez possa ser este aqui e
afirmações sobre o Brasil, nossa for- por décadas agora, o nosso − aliás, pro-
mação, a então hora presente e os nome possessivo e sem equívocos com
apontamentos para o futuro tiveram o qual Buarque de Holanda encerra sua
resenha | mário augusto medeiros da silva
973
974
ainda a assinalar, que são suscitados ter dado certo em determinada direção.
por Pedro Meira Monteiro e ajudam a O que, como lembra Meira Monteiro,
responder algo sobre a atualidade do parecia anunciar que, talvez, naqueles
debate que ele nos propõe a partir de anos, finalmente teríamos lugar num
Raízes do Brasil. Um dos capítulos, que certo mundo teleologicamente avan-
atinge o pico em pontos já altos, é de- çado, civilizado e desenvolvido. Um
dicado a pensar as possibilidades de futuro do pretérito demasiado duro é
rever Entreatos (2004) e Peões (2004) – este tempo do ensaio.
documentários de João Moreira Salles Mas o autor de Signo e desterro capí-
e Eduardo Coutinho – à luz de Raízes tulos antes já se mostrara desconfiado
do Brasil. Em “Cordialidade e poder: en- da ideia de telos e o quanto isso tam-
tre o cinema e o ensaio, Lula e a polí- bém seria uma leitura complicada pa-
tica”, aquela ideia do tempo futuro na ra Raízes do Brasil. Assim, o ato funda-
forma ensaio ganha características dis- dor do Partido dos Trabalhadores, no
tintivas. São os anos do primeiro go- qual Sérgio Buarque assina na primei-
verno Lula (2002-2006) que se enfocam; ra linha, é uma aposta que pode ser
resenha | mário augusto medeiros da silva
975
Recebida em 2/5/2017 |
Aprovada em 16/8/2017
Os textos deverão ser escritos em fonte Times New Roman, tamanho 12,
recuo padrão de início de parágrafo, alinhamento justificado,
espaçamento duplo e em páginas de tamanho A4 (210x297 cm), numa
única face.
4. Capítulo de livro
Fernandes, Florestan. (2008). Os movimentos sociais no “meio negro”. In: A
integração do negro na sociedade de classes. São Paulo: Globo, p. 7-134 (vol. 2).
5. Coletânea
Botelho, André & Schwarcz, Lilia Moritz (orgs.). (2009). Um enigma
chamado Brasil. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras.
6. Artigo em coletânea organizada pelo mesmo autor
Gonçalves, José Reginaldo Santos. (2007). Teorias antropológicas e
objetos materiais. In: Antropologia dos objetos: coleções, museus e
patrimônios. Rio de Janeiro: IPHAN, p. 13-42.
7. Artigo em coletânea organizada pelo autor em conjunto com outro
Villas Bôas, Glaucia. (2008). O insolidarismo revisitado em O problema do
sindicato único no Brasil. In: Villas Bôas, Glaucia; Pessanha, Elina Gonçalves
da Fonte & Morel, Regina Lúcia de Moraes. Evaristo de Moraes Filho, um
intelectual humanista. Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks, p. 61-84.
8. Artigo em coletânea organizada por outro autor
Alexander, Jeffrey. (1999). A importância dos clássicos. In: Giddens,
Anthony & Jonathan Turner (orgs.). Teoria social hoje. São Paulo: Ed.
Unesp, p. 23-89.
9. Artigo em Periódico
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. (1988). Exode sur exode. L’Homme, XXVIII/2–3,
p. 13-23.
10. Tese Acadêmica
Veiga Junior, Maurício Hoelz. (2010). Homens livres, mundo privado:
violência e pessoalização numa sequência sociológica. Dissertação de
sociol. antropol. | rio de janeiro, v.07.03: 977 – 982, dezembro, 2017
ENVIO DE CONTRIBUIÇÕES
A Declaração de Singapura sobre Integridade em Pesquisa foi desenvolvida como parte da II Conferência Mundial sobre Integridade
em Pesquisa, realizada de 21 a 24 de julho de 2010, em Singapura, como guia global para a condução responsável de pesquisas. Não
é um documento regulatório, nem representa as políticas oficiais dos países e organizações que financiaram ou participaram na Con-
ferência. Para informações sobre políticas oficiais, normas e regras na área de integridade em pesquisa, devem ser consultadas as
agências nacionais e organizações apropriadas. A Declaração original em inglês está disponível em: <http://www.singapore
statement.org>.
Revista BRASILEIRA
DE CIÊNCIAS
SOCIAIS
volume 32
número 94
junho 2017
publicação quadrimestral
ISSN 0102-6909
ASSOCIAÇÃO NACIONAL DE PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO E
PESQUISA EM CIÊNCIAS SOCIAIS
SUMÁRIO
CONFERÊNCIA
Estado plurinacional y democracia intercultural en Bolívia
Fernando Mayorga
ARTIGOS
A economia política dos bacharéis udenistas
Jorge Gomes de Souza Chaloub
Mais que boas intenções: técnicas quantitativas e qualitativas na avaliação de impacto de políticas públicas
Mariana Batista e Amanda Domingos
Entre o dever da toga e o apoio à farda: independência judicial e imparcialidade no STF durante o regime
militar
Alexandre Douglas Zaidan de Carvalho
RESENHAS
O necessário debate sobre as redes digitais
Luciana Alcântara
0tGLDVSDUWLFLSDWLYDVHYLROrQFLDVH[WUHPDVXPDHWQRJUD¿DRQOLQHGRVWLURWHLRVHPHVFRODV
Tiago Hyra Rodrigues