This article presents one of Brazil's most important social scientists, Francisco Maria Cavalcanti de Oliveira, better known as Chico de Oliveira. The fact that he was an important figure in pre-1964 nationalistic and pro-development political culture - in SUDENE - and in the post-coup political culture critical of this legacy - in CEBRAP - constitutes a trajectory of dissonance, activeness and sometimes turbulence. It also reflects the devir (kinesis) of the social space in which he was an actor, triggering a relativization of an institutional, stylistic and ideological duality between these two true ideal types of production and intellectual activity. Although this duality has made all the difference for many of those who protagonized the period which brought the substitution of an intellectual standard and political hegemony (essayism engaged in the ISEB manner) for another (politicized university students of USP origin), perhaps because it is not necessarily so oppositional as we usually read in the history of our intellectual field and of the institutionalization of Brazilian social sciences.
Brazilian Social Thought; Intellectuals; Political Culture; Francisco de Oliveira