The Age of University Chairs: The history of the anthropology institutionalization at the University of São Paulo (1934-1968)

Abstract

This doctoral project aims to reflect on the history of anthropology in Brazil through the research of its institutionalization and development at the university level. Considering the study of the history of anthropology as fundamental to anthropological theory itself, I intend to analyze how the discipline was created and developed at the University of São Paulo (USP) during the period between 1934 and 1968, when the university's professorship system was in place. Although historiography of the Brazilian social sciences has given a prominent role to the institutionalization of the University for the development of anthropology in the country, the history of the discipline in the institution is little known. Thus, the study of the period is fundamental to the understanding of how this process occurred. The research will develop from an ethnography in little known institutional and personal archives to reflect on certain opaque zones in the narratives about the history of anthropology at the University of São Paulo