A Forgotten Polemic: Costa Pinto, Guerreiro Ramos, and the Issue of Race Relations

Abstract

The article focuses on Luiz de Aguiar Costa Pinto's and Alberto Guerreiro Ramos' sociological production on the issue of race relations. Noteworthy contributors to the social sciences during the 1945-64 period, these two sociologists were selected not only for the importance of their work but also because of their polemic regarding ethnic intercourse. Costa Pinto's and Guerreiro Ramos' analyses of the issue reveal two distinct patterns of sociological work. Yet it must be underscored that when these two intellectuals approached race relations, each in his own way, they were devoting themselves primarily to the era's driving issues - social change and the process of Brazilian development.