Abstract
The article examines the affinities and convergences that bring together the first editions of Roots of Brazil and The mansions and the shanties (1936). I contend that both Gilberto Freyre’s and Sérgio Buarque de Holanda’s accounts on the social-historical processes that ushered in the formation and later modernization of the Brazilian society are torn between two seemingly incompatible perspectives: on the one hand, an internalist and substantialist interpretative approach and, on the other, a transactional view on such phenomena. At last, in light of a set of ideas outlined by some relational discussions in contemporary sociology, I probe into the contributions of Roots and Mansions towards a properly relational take on the Brazilian experience, attentive to the myriad societal connections involved in the formation and subsequent adherence of the country to patterns of sociability in tune with modernity.
Keywords
Roots of Brazil; The Mansions and the Shanties; modernity; Brazilian social thought; sociological theory