Darcy Ribeiro and Utopia in Latin American Exile: The Structures of Feelings as Methodological Hypothesis

Abstract

The intellectual trajectory of Darcy Ribeiro combines with his generation framed by “utopian mindset” in the mannheimian sense. This same generation, victims of successive military coups, takes the path of exile. The 1960-70 exile experience in the Latin America was, nonetheless, paradoxical. In the most inhospitable situations, those in exile managed to reinvent their “place to live” in the terms of Theodor Adorno, and to confirm their restless critical spirit in connection with Edward Said. I use as methodological hypothesis the concept of “structure of feeling” by Raymond Williams, which allows the capture of the “practical consciousness of a present kind”, “thought as felt and feeling as thought”, indefinite and diffuse, nevertheless full of consequences. This perspective is useful to the perception of the diversity of initiatives and activities that, even in discontinuity, authorizes us to speak about Latin American intellectual production today. Keywords: Darcy Ribeiro; structure of feelings; exile; utopia; Latin America; Critical Though.