An Interview With Boaventura de Sousa Santos About His Trajectory in the World of Sociology of Law

Currently, Boaventura de Sousa Santos continues to play his fruitful role as an enlightened thinker on the main issues and problems in his position as Emeritus Professor at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra and at major international universities. He is also considered one of the most prestigious and influential Portuguese intellectuals at international level for the projection of his works that have contributed to rethink the epistemologies of the social and human sciences and help to look critically at the drifts of the globalized world.

He entered the Faculty of Law and during his stay in West Berlin as a scholar, he studied philosophy and became interested in Marxism when he witnessed the contradictions of communist Germany. He also pursued a doctorate in sociology at Yale University in the United States, where he became a Marxist and immersed himself in social struggle and inequalities. He then traveled to Brazil to conduct fieldwork in a favela, which sparked his interest in epistemology and theorizing southern epistemologies.

Upon his return to Portugal, Boaventura de Sousa Santos actively participated in the April 25th Revolution and became involved in the founding of the Faculty of Economics at the University of Coimbra. Together with other researchers, he founded the Center for Social Studies, where he developed the theory of semi-periphery and the concept of welfare society.

However, his participation in the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre in 2001 led him to question and decolonize his Marxism. Thus, Boaventura de Sousa Santos gives rise to the theorization of the epistemologies of the South and adopts a more diverse and open perspective towards the world.

Thus, Sousa Santos, with more than 50 years of experience, answers in this interview the reasons why he became involved in the world of Law and Sociology and what have been his contributions in these branches. He also discusses the challenges he has faced throughout his professional career.

Boaventura de Sousa Santos, how does your story begin?

I was born in Coimbra in 1940, in a working class family. At the age of twelve, I started tutoring to help with household expenses. Despite the difficulties, I managed to enter law school. I was one of the first children of the working class to enter the Law School, which caused some surprise among the professors and more so because I was one of the best students.

Were you always interested in working in the world of sociology? What inspired you?

I have always been concerned with the social and political problems of my time. Someone who comes from the working class, especially from the 1950s, lives intensely with social inequalities. I entered law school because during the dictatorship sociology studies were not allowed and law was always a window to the social. Later I came to the conclusion that positivism and legal dogmatics weighed so heavily on the faculty that social problems were never addressed. I went to West Berlin to study Philosophy of Law and this was my first big opening to contemporary issues. The city was divided by the Wall and I often crossed it to visit my girlfriend. They were two parallel worlds and that made me reflect a lot. I returned to Portugal but decided to study Sociology in combination with the Law studies I had done. Hence my going to Yale University to do a PhD in Sociology of Law (1969-1973).

We have noted that you have distinguished yourself as a sociologist, can you comment a bit more on your professional trajectory?

My work became better known after 2001 with my participation in the World Social Forum (WSF). It was an encounter of reciprocal interconnection with other social struggles, other narratives of liberation and emancipation. I got involved as much as possible and since I speak several languages it facilitated the dissemination of my thinking. In addition, I gave lectures in almost all regions of the world and my books were published in many languages, even though they were not easy to disseminate.

Boaventura de Sousa Santos, we highlight your contribution as a professor and researcher. Could you briefly describe your most important contributions to sociology and other related disciplines?

I am part of a vast tradition of critical thought; and therefore, of critical sociology that for a long time had Marxism as its main theoretical source. After the WSF in 2001, my thinking was enriched with other theoretical perspectives without ever losing the Marxist matrix. But Marxism became one of the components along with others such as all anti-colonial thought and feminist thought in its immense diversity. In addition, I realized that science is valid knowledge but it is not the only valid knowledge, since it is from there that the epistemologies of the South emerged.

Throughout your career, Sousa Santos, what do you consider to have been your greatest academic challenge so far and how have you overcome it?

The greatest challenge was being able to transmit my knowledge to the non-academic public and, in particular, to activists of social movements. How to talk about southern epistemologies without using the term. Certainly far from your usual vocabulary, I have spent many hours talking about the content of ideas that are sometimes much simpler than the designations given to them by the academic world.

What advice would you give to students interested in pursuing a career in sociology?

Not to uncritically follow any theory (for example, that of southern epistemologies). Valuing science, but knowing that there is other knowledge that answers questions that science cannot answer. Knowing that the understanding of the world is much broader than the Western understanding of the world.