artigos e ensaios - 2012 / Mariza Peirano

Memories of M-L

It is a common fact that graduate students and their teachers always develop a special bond throughout the writing of theses and dissertations, whether positive or negative. In the case of anthropology this relationship often produces special moments and experiences in which the discipline's theoretical orientation is put into practice by means of exchanges that are at the same time intellectual, personal, and emotional. From a sociological perspective, the process of advising new generations is the basis for the formation of academic and intellectual lineages. For better or for worse, I believe that the student-advisor relationship never ends, and instead continues, even if only in the background, throughout one's career.

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It is a common fact that graduate students and their teachers always develop a special bond throughout the writing of theses and dissertations, whether positive or negative. In the case of anthropology this relationship often produces special moments and experiences in which the discipline's theoretical orientation is put into practice by means of exchanges that are at the same time intellectual, personal, and emotional. From a sociological perspective, the process of advising new generations is the basis for the formation of academic and intellectual lineages. For better or for worse, I believe that the student-advisor relationship never ends, and instead continues, even if only in the background, throughout one's career.

At the time, I was quite surprised. At the Universidade de Brasília, where I had done my master's, the choice of an advisor was a two-way process, an agreement that would be woven throughout the classes of the first semester. Later, I came to understand that, in the United States, in those days, and indeed still today, it was a usual practice for the advisor to be assigned according to areas of geographic/-cultural interest. So, it was only natural that David should be my advisor.Leia na íntegra...