Brazilian anthropology: brief questions about the history of a field in expansion

Abstract

This paper presents some thoughts about the development of anthropology in Brazil

and the actual scene of this discipline in this Country. It also analyses the relationship between Brazilian anthropology and other peripheral anthropologies, more specifically Latin-American ones. Despite our geographical, political, and linguistic proximity, the influence of Latin-American anthropologies is still reduced in the formation of Brazilian anthropologists. Thus, this article asks some questions concerning the motivations bringing us to such fragmented and diffuse knowledge of the anthropological production in Latin America, despite our geopolitical proximity and some dialogical spaces constructed in the last years (like the Mercosul Anthropology Meeting and the Latin American Anthropology Association).