Abstract
The aim is to analyze the controversy between two professors who occupied the chairs of sociology I and II at the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters of the University of São Paulo in its early years. This controversy, which opposed sociology and ethnology, social theory and empirical research, was rooted in different intellectual circles: sociology, at the Institute of Education of the University of São Paulo, and ethnology, at the Department of Culture of the Municipality of São Paulo. The aim is to show that intellectual transfers depend on the elective affinities established between groups of foreign and Brazilian intellectuals and that, in the case of São Paulo, the intellectuals relatively closer to the ruling groups lean towards the new discipline, ethnology, while those relatively more dominated in the field of power prefer sociology, already taught in normal schools. To do this, I use documentary and textual analysis, as well as a study of trajectories and networks of interdependence.
Keywords
French missions; University of São Paulo; Chairs of sociology; Institut of Education; Department of Culture