| This study analyzes the influence U.S. sociology had on the development of sociology and rural sociology in Brazil, after the Great Depression and World War II. Its basic assumption is that such an analysis cannot be divorced from an understanding of the social and intellectual contexts from which these disciplines have emerged. In the 1930's, Brazilian society underwent deep structural changes. A rising national bourgeoisie, allied with dissident army officers, overthrew a rural oligarchy. This revolution was characterized by a growth of the urban working class, industrialization, organization of the Left and of a cultural movement calling for a more scientific study of Brazilian societies.;Brazilian sociology was influenced by Europe and the United States; however, empirical U.S. sociology was more widely accepted, partially because of earlier adoption of positivist practices and of the notion of evolutionary naturalism by Brazilian intellectuals. These analyses were dualistic and sought consensus and integration. U.S. foreign policy, cultural exchanges, and interest in scientific and applied sociology coincided with the aspirations of the leaders of the 1930 revolution.;The rural-urban continuum, with a long tradition in U.S. rural sociology, found fertile ground in Brazil, especially between the 1930's and 1960's. Donald Pierson and T. Lynn Smith were among the most influential sociologists of this era. Their analyses of communities and Brazilian society were positivistic, empirical and atomistic. Brazilian sociologists reacted to influences and developed an alternative analysis of their society. Empirical U.S. sociology was contrasted with historical materialism and raised the question of its object of analysis.;Sociology was formally introduced in 1933 at the School of Sociology and Politics in Sao Paulo. It emerged through a manifest signed by Paulista intellectuals, aiming (1) to educate an elite of intellectuals for economic, administrative and political leadership, and (2) to seek peaceful solutions for Brazilian problems. Positivism and the notions of "order and progress" fitted the dominant nation-building ideology of the time. Most of these intellectuals came from the rural oligarchy but were socially downwardly mobile because of economic losses suffered by their families. In seeking professional acceptance, they were coopted by the state. |
