Sociological portraits: a heuristic tool

Sociology is a paradigmatic and methodologically eclectic science that aims to explain the social through the social. This does not exclude the existence of instruments with relevant heuristic potential. This article seeks, in a brief presentation, to expose the sociological portraits, a proposal that originated in Bernard Lahire, in their elaboration process and respective potential. To attain this goal, the authors performed a collection and document analysis of the sociological portraits of Bernard Lahire and other authors who discuss and/or problematize and implement this sociological tool. The result is a discussion of the concept of sociological portraits and a proposal for their elaboration, highlighting their potentialities. The conclusion is that the sociological portrait is a tool with a high heuristic potential that can account for the plurality inherent in an individual scale by allowing an understanding of the internal and external relationships that shape the practices of actors.