Public Sociology: The Brazilian Sociological Imagination and Public Problems.
Author: Perlatto, Fernando , fperlatto@yahoo.com.br
Department: Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Políticos (IESP)
University: Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), Brazil
Supervisor: Luiz Werneck Vianna
Year of completion: 2013
Language of dissertation: Portuguese
Keywords:
public sociology
, sociological imagination
, public problems
, Brazil
Areas of Research:
History of Sociology
, Theory
, Political Sociology
Abstract
This Thesis aims to analyze the relationship between the sociological imagination and public problems in Brazil. Based on an analysis of the editorial output of sociology books in Brazil between 1940 and 2012, we suggest that the Brazilian sociological imagination has, since its initial process of institutionalization, proved responsive and normative regarding the most relevant public problems in each political conjuncture. In dialogue with the proposal of a
“public sociology”, as originally formulated by Michael Burawoy in the United States, we
demonstrate that a peripheral sociological experiment, such as the Brazilian one, characterized by the strong interdependence between professional sociology and public sociology, could provide a contribution in the process of rethinking different forms of imagination concerning the notion of “public sociology” - in both analytical and normative terms - broadening its theoretical and practical basis. To this end, we propose an intellectual agenda around public sociology focused on building a “cosmopolitanism of connections”, which seeks to connect the national and the universal in understanding and facing “public problems”, to which the Brazilian sociological experiment has much to contribute.
