Article



Dados vol. 28 n. 1 Rio de Janeiro 1985

O Antropólogo como Cidadão

Peirano, Mariza G.S.

Abstract

ln this paper, the author discusses the role of the Brazilian social scientist, between the universalism of science and the holism of citizenship, with Louis Dumont's ideas on the ideology of an international community of anthropologists serving as the reference for contrast. Calling attention to the civic and political part which the social scientist plays in Brazil, the author offers a sociological criticism of Dumont's proposition in terms of its affinity with French national ideology, on the one hand; while, on the other, seeking to provide a context for the different universalist currents bequeathed to Brazilian social scientists by their predecessors in the literature. ln a discussion of the ideological circumstances that make the development of anthropological thought possible, the paper concludes by proposing that the dimensions of the (i) empirical ideological reality; (ii) civic question; (iii) theoretical conception; and (iv) ideology of the social scientist be distinguished in Brazil as a condition allowing the anthropologist - as in the case of Brazil - to study populations and problems in his own society without finding himself enclosed within the totality of which he is a part.

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O Antropólogo como Cidadão