Abstract
While revisiting some of the most acclaimed oeuvres of the so-called Brazilian social thought, the article examines the feeling of temporal mismatch that underlies a wide variety of portraits of social life in Brazil. I contend that notwithstanding the variegated analytical perspectives inherent to this intellectual constellation, most of these oeuvres are inclined to ascribe to Brazil a peculiar temporal configuration, only partially synchronized with the homogeneous and linear-progressive time envisaged in modernity. That said, I am also interested in investigating a set of critical propositions to the sociological imagination in order to assess an additional hypothesis, namely: these very same visions of Brazilian society seem to insinuate an alternative theoretical frame of reference, sensitive to the unbalances, asymmetries and contradictions that crisscross modernity’s temporality. In the end, I reflect upon the heuristic potential of such ideas and their contributions to contemporary sociology.
Keywords:
Brazilian social thought; Modernity in Brazil; Sociological theory; Interpretations of Brazil; Modernity