Fernandes, Florestan (1920–1995)

Florestan Fernandes (b. 22 July 1920, d. 10 August 1995), Brazilian sociologist and reformer who founded the São Paulo school of sociology, which studied capitalist modernization in Brazil. Fernandes began his career with theses on social organization and war among the Tupinambá Indians (1949, 1952). In the 1950s, after establishing himself at the University of São Paulo, he turned to topics in folklore and race relations. A UNESCO-sponsored project, conducted in collaboration with Roger Bastide and others, resulted in Relações raciais entre negros e brancos em São Paulo (1955; Race Relations Between Blacks and Whites in São Paulo), the first of his several revisionist studies of race relations in the context of São Paulo's twentieth-century transition to a competitive, class society, including The Negro in Brazilian Society (1964; English trans. 1969). Fernandes influenced a generation of sociologists, including Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Octávio Ianni, through his studies of slavery and race relations. Fernandes was purged from the University of São Paulo in 1969 and exiled. Upon his return to Brazil, he wrote an analysis of Brazil's transition to modern capitalism, A revolução burguesa no Brasil: Ensaio de interpretação sociológica (1975; The Bourgeois Revolution in Brazil). In the 1980s he published treatises on political redemocratization, and in 1986 was elected to the Constituent Congress by the socialist Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers' Party).

See alsoSociology .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

D'incao, Maria Angela ed., O saber militante: Ensaios sobre Florestan Fernandes. São Paulo: Editora UNESP, 1987.

Mota, Carlos Guilherme. Ideologia da cultura brasileira, 1933–1974. São Paulo: Editora Ática, 1977.

Sampaio, Plinhio de Arruda. Entre a nação e a barbárie. Petrópolis: Editora Vozes, 1999.

Soares, Eliane Veras. Florestan Fernandes: O militante solitário. São Paulo: Cortez Editora, 1997.

Tótora, Silvana. "A questão democrática em Florestan Fernandes." Lua Nova (1999): 109-126.

                                                      Dain Borges