Sociologist Leôncio Martins Rodrigues Netto, retired professor from the Department of Political Science at the Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences at Unicamp, passed away this Monday (3/5) at the age of 87.
Born in 1934 in São Paulo, Leôncio Martins Rodrigues completed a Social Sciences course at the former Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters of the University of São Paulo. In 1964 he obtained his master's degree in sociology with the dissertation “Funções e Manifestações do Conflito Industrial em S. Paulo”, and in 1967 he defended his doctoral thesis “Worker Attitudes in the Automobile Industry” with the guidance of Florestan Fernandes. In 1969 he participated in the founding of the Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning (Cebrap).
As a professor at the University of São Paulo, Leôncio Martins Rodrigues was a professor of sociology and political science. In 1985 he was hired by the State University of Campinas, where he contributed to the production of knowledge in both sociology and political science, on topics such as trade unionism, labor relations, parties, elections and ideology. He retired in 2003 but continued to conduct research on Brazilian politics.
Leôncio Martins Rodrigues was honored in 2001 with the National Order of Scientific Merit, and in 2005 he was elected member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC). In 2009 he was awarded the Florestan Fernandes Prize from the Brazilian Society of Sociology, and in 2015 he received the Antônio Flávio Pierucci Academic Excellence Award from the National Association of Postgraduate Programs in Social Sciences. He is the author of books such as “Political Parties, Ideology and Social Composition”, “Força Sindical: A Socio-Political Analysis”, “CUT: Os Militantes e a Ideologia”, among other works.
Professor Rachel Meneguello, from the Department of Political Science at the Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences and dean of Postgraduate Studies at Unicamp, lamented the loss of the professor. “Leôncio Martins Rodrigues is one of the great names in social sciences, he came to IFCH together with other renowned colleagues to found the Doctorate in Social Sciences in the mid-1980s, one of the first successful interdisciplinary initiatives at Unicamp. It has an unquestionable importance in Political Science, especially in studies on political parties and the Brazilian political class, with avant-garde production that helped to train some generations of researchers”, says Rachel Meneguello. “He knew the value of collective work and had enormous intellectual generosity. His good humor was the mark of good conversations about the country’s politics.”
Read more about Leôncio Martins Rodrigues:
From the fight against hunger to the hunger of radicals
“We still cannot say that the left has come to power”
Brazilian Academy of Sciences elects Leôncio Rodrigues and Carol Collins
