Reflections upon the Use of Sociological Knowledge in Latin America. Intrumentalisation and Critical Thought in Gino Germani´s Ideas.

Gino Germani was certainly one of the key figures in Latin American sociology. Still today, his ideas are an indispensable theoretical framework to analyse social dynamics in the region and its meandering modernization process. Both Germani´s actions and ideas had been classified in many ways and levels: theorist of modernization, antifascist untiring warrior, academic impresario, imperialist sociologist; but all these categories seem to be unsatisfactory to understandably think his complex work. Besides he did not offer openly a framework from the sociology of knowledge, his ideas are actually interested from this point of view. His readings and interpretations on the relations between politics and science, his ideas on the role of contemporary sociology an also his own life story fighting against totalitarian regimes all set a map to draw a systematic interpretation of the scientists and intellectuals in modern societies. In that pattern, Germani put sociology and sociologists in the centre. So, this paper aims to present and discuss Germani´s contributions to the sociology of knowledge. Looking to his ideas and actions, this work wants to understand the ways Germani proposed but also used sociological knowledge, both in terms of instrumental and critical framework, in the study of modernization theory and in his public participation to orient policies in Argentina.