| Sumario: | This study looks at the social and cultural conditions of the formation of the Brazilian army duringthe Empire and the First Republic. Within a context of weak military autonomy vis-a-vis other socialspheres, our results point to the functioning of hybrid recruitment and selection mechanisms regulatedby contradictory logics that fuse meritocratic principles (academic degrees, years of service, courage)and extra-meritocratic ones (personalist relationships, political notoreity) for the purposes of promotion.Without denying the effects of the expansion of the military school system and the adoption offormal regulation criteria, our study aims to explore the objective impacts of such innovation overthat professional sphere, permitting the analysis of the varied types of resources and strategiesemployed by social agents, in particular the use of relationships based on personal reciprocity andtaking political positions. The reconstitution of the Brazilian military space through the examinationof the trajectories of high level officials seeks to contribute to an understanding of what conceptionsagents present as legitimate or illegitimate, with conducts being read in variable ways according tothe viewpoint adopted and the position occupied within social space. Through an in-depth presentationof two particular trajectories, we note how relationships between social practices, conceptions andmeanings associated with particular agents and groups and the processes of institutional re-definitionthey are located within are articulated, seeking to shed new light on the question of the transformationof political space and the processes of institutional innovation underway in Brazil during the period.
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