The aim of this article is to discuss Flávio Suplicy de Lacerda’s trajectory, giving special emphasis to his family genealogy (social capital) and the cultural capital inherited and acquired as assets and used as dean of Paraná University and as Secretary of State for Paraná as well as Minister for Education in the military government of Castelo Branco. The hypothesis that family spirit and cultural heritage were strategies used by Flávio de Lacerda to adopt leading roles in the cultural and political scenario in Paraná and in Brazil. The hypothesis was discussed in the light of concepts of trajectory, strategy, family spirit and inherited and acquired cultural capital based on biographical and autobiographical data. This information was seen as the production of a memory and/or representation which seeked to sanctify this character. The biographical descriptions were crossed with the social and cultural contexts allowing to bring into play the theoretical apparatus and the empirical object. This analysis permits us to state that structured structures convert themselves into structuring structures in the path of the intellectual Flávio de Lacerda. In internalizing the structured structures, he incorporated the practical sense as being sense of play, as a strategy to enter the intellectual field as well as widen the space for action in this same field. Summing up, when taking the data as an attempt to sanctify the trajectory of Flávio de Lacerda and convert it into products of the process in social and cultural contexts, this article contributes towards the understanding of the complex relationship between the individual and society, that is, it evidences that the social and cultural assets function as powerful strategies to adopt leading roles in the political and cultural fields.
Trajectory; strategy; family spirit; cultural capital; elite of Paraná
