Academic messianism and redemption by the working class

The academic output of the 1970s and 1980s, dedicated to the formation of the Brazilian working class, carries with it the expectations of its scholars for the future. Thus, the past appears as a harbinger of things to come according to representations of history and the working class. The aim of this book is to point out how these representations, on the one hand, are constituted historically, through the incorporation of socio-cultural configurations; and, on the other hand, manifest themselves as matrices of academic practice and discourse, establishing the theoretical fields of interpretation of the formation of the Brazilian working class. From this perspective, we understand that academic production presents itself as cultural production, which transforms raw materials (memory) into cultural materials (history), attributing meaning and scientificity; according to a socio-cultural and temporal place, a practice and a writing.