This article attempts to discern the theoretical potential inscribed in the contributions of two Brazilian sociologists to the sociology of development between 1950 and 1970: Luiz Costa Pinto and Florestan Fernandes. To this end, the innovative direction of their formulations is analyzed in contrast to the American sociology of modernization, which by then had become hegemonic. Such analysis is done from three views: (a) their conceptions of the sociological practice and of its specificities in a peripheral context; (b) their views on the dynamics of social change in Brazil, as forged in their research on relations between blacks and whites, (c) their theoretical syntheses of the 1960s and 1970s.
social thought; development; Luiz Costa Pinto; Florestan Fernandes