Abstract
This article explores, from an ethnographic standpoint, the ideas, themes and expressive styles raised by the study of indigenous topics in the intellectual production of the historian and critic Sérgio Buarque de Holanda (1902-1982) in parallel with the historiographic approaches to indigenous peoples in the history of São Paulo, promoted by São Paulo intelligentsia from the 1920s and 1930s. For this purpose, it examines some texts published by the author in the period of his engagement with São Paulo’s modernism and in the gestation period of his project for studying the “monções” and the “bandeiras paulistas.” It seeks to unravel a new interpretative key regarding Buarque’s work, taking another look at his complex and emblematic relations with the historiographical tradition in Brazil and “racialist” ideals of modernization.
Keywords
Sérgio Buarque de Holanda; Indigenous issue; São Paulo’s modernism; São Paulo’s historiography; Brasil’s modernity