The article Transnationalism and the History of the Social Sciences in Brazil: Race and Economic Development in the Sociology of Donald Pierson and T. Lynn Smith, by Thiago da Costa Lopes, PhD, graduated from the Graduate Program in the History of the Sciences and Health (PPGHCS/ COC/ Fiocruz), and Marcos Chor Maio, researcher at Casa de Oswaldo (COC/Fiocruz), has been published in the edited volume Transnational Humans and Transnationalisms in the Humanities: Crossing Boundaries in the Americas. The collection, edited by Max Paul Friedman, Stefan Rinke, and Núria Vilanova, was released in 2025 by University of New Mexico Press, as part of the series The Americas in the World.
The article by Lopes and Maio examines how the academic trajectories and scholarly production of American sociologists Donald Pierson and T. Lynn Smith became intertwined with the Brazilian intellectual landscape during the “Good Neighbor era” of the 1930s. Focusing on their dialogues with Brazilian authors working in the field of social thought, the authors explore key issues such as race relations, community development, and the transformations experienced by Brazilian society amid processes of urbanization and industrialization.
By situating Pierson’s and Smith’s work within the formative moment of the social sciences in Brazil, the article shows how their interpretations of the country emerged from the intersection of diverse intellectual traditions and from intense academic exchanges between North and South America. Analyzing the forms of sociological knowledge they produced in specific historical contexts highlights the enduring traces left by these transnational circulations in the development of Brazilian social thought.
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