Em busca do Brasil: Edgard Roquette-Pinto e o retrato antropológico brasileiro (1905-1935) [Searching for Brazil: Edgard Roquette-Pinto and the Brazilian anthropological scenario (1905-1935)], jointly published by FGV Press and FIOCRUZ, breaks down the history and work of Roquette-Pinto as a physical anthropologist, in order to understand how his studies on the physical and psychological characteristics of the Brazilian population were articulated to paint a “realistic picture” of Brazil’s racial formation.

According to the author of the book, Vanderlei Sebastião de Souza, Roquette-Pinto has long ceased to be remembered only as a pioneer of radio in Brazil. His relevance and the complexity of his multifaceted activities have caught the attention of scholars for several years, despite still not being a well-known character in historiography. Considered by his contemporaries as a major protagonist in the debate on racial ideology, Roquette-Pinto was the ‘illustrious master’ of anthropological studies in Brazil, as one of the authors who contributed to the positive conception of racial mixing of essayist and sociologist Gilberto Freyre, for instance.

Guided by a solid scientific and positivist slant, the anthropologist believed that the reality of Brazil’s creation would only be truly revealed when science managed to collect ‘objective data.’ Obtained through the use of tables, statistics, and equations in his anthropological research, they would gather information about the living conditions and the general characteristics of the population in different regions of the country, regardless of whether these regions had black, mixed, or white people, poor or wealthy people, people from the coast or the countryside. In general terms, the intellectual project launched by Roquette-Pinto on anthropological studies also denounced the shortcomings and lack of scientific rigor in the description of ‘reality,’ or even the absence of commitment to national interests.

This conversion to political action and the search for ‘scientific realism’ within the country was linked to the perception that Brazilians still faced a fissure dividing the so-called ‘real Brazil’ from the ‘legal Brazil.’ That made it impossible, at that time, to reach a more ‘objective’ description of the national reality and develop projects to address the problems faced by Brazilians.

The analysis of the work of Roquette-Pinto as a physical anthropologist, his intellectual relations, his work in the public sphere, as well as his dialog with German and American anthropology, are the main contributions of this work to the historiographical and anthropological debate.

Go to the website for more information, in Portuguese, on the book.