The other side of the river: Darcy Ribeiro and the Latin American modernization
Sociology of Modernization; Latin America
This thesis aims to investigate the process of “translation” or “acclimatization” of the sociology of Latin American modernization in Darcy Ribeiro's thought, based on the intersection between his “Studies in the Anthropology of Civilization” and his novels “Maíra” and “Utopia Selvagem”. We seek to demonstrate, through the articulation between his conceptions of “Reflex Modernization” and “Ethnic Transfiguration”, how Darcy Ribeiro explained the reception of the cognitive repertoire of modernity in Latin America. We try to understand to what extent his theoretical formulation departed from the hegemonic sociological discourse of modernization in its literary figuration, proposing an anthropophagic image for Latin Americanity. Our hypothesis is that, in the literary dialogue between “Maíra” and “Utopia Selvagem”, Darcy Ribeiro criticized modernity within a utopian-romantic literature.