Acessibilidade / Reportar erro

Writing the history of knowledge in Brazil

Abstract

This article surveys recent contributions to the history of knowledge in Brazil, mainly concerned with the history of the sciences, and makes some suggestions about the future development of the field, focussing on the different spaces or sites of knowledge (colleges and universities, museums, archives, botanical gardens, observatories, newspapers, foundations and so on) that have proliferated in the last 200 years in particular.

science; universities; museums; Brazil; history of knowledge

Resumo

O artigo examina contribuições recentes para a história do conhecimento no Brasil, principalmente relacionada à história das ciências. Lança sugestões para o futuro desenvolvimento do campo, destacando diferentes espaços ou locais de conhecimento (colégios e universidades, museus, arquivos, jardins botânicos, observatórios, jornais, fundações, entre outros) que proliferaram particularmente nos últimos duzentos anos.

ciência; universidades; museus; Brasil; história do conhecimento

In 2015, the Brazilian Secretary for Science and Technology described the annual Semana Nacional devoted to those topics as a “marco da história do conhecimento brasileiro.”1 1 Quoted at <http://snct.mctic.gov.br/semanact/opencms/index.html>. The Secretary was certainly up-to-date in referring to the history of knowledge, a topic of growing interest in the United States, Germany, France, Britain and elsewhere, widening out from the history of science (a discipline established in the academic world about a century earlier), and also from intellectual history. One might even speak of a recent “cognitive turn” in the history of historical writing as in the history of psychology or that of literary studies (Ty, 2010TY, Michelle. On the cognitive turn in literary studies. Qui Parle, v.19, n.1, p.205-219. 2010.).

The history of knowledge differs from the history of “science” (a nineteenth-century western concept) by including more kinds of knowledge, including practical skills (“knowhow” or “implict knowledge”). It differs from intellectual history by an emphasis on the history of the institutions that undertake research and teaching (Burke, 2007BURKE, Peter. La historia intelectual en la era del giro cultural. Prismas: revista de historia intelectual, n.11, p.159-164. 2007.).2 2 An expanded version can be found in Burke (2011).

To what extent has Brazil participated in this trend, or movement? A considerable number of valuable studies of different aspects of this vast subject have been published, with historians of science once again as the pioneers.3 3 My apologies to anyone whose contribution I have overlooked. However, there is not, so far as I know, any attempt to bring all these studies together, to reveal connections between developments in different domains. Hence it might be useful to return to the famous and ambitious question posed in 1845 by Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius, “Como se deve escrever a história do Brasil?” (Martius, 1845MARTIUS, Carl Friedrich Philipp von. Como se deve escrever a história do Brasil. Revista do Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro, v.6, n.24, p.381-403. 1845.). More modestly, we might ask, how might the history of knowledge in Brazil be written?

The task is at once impossible and worth attempting. It is impossible because of the variety of knowledges, of the need to have access to the brains of every Brazilian, or at least of samples of every type of Brazilian, living or dead. It is worth attempting because knowledge is an essential part of every kind of history, political, economic and social as well as intellectual or cultural. It is also worth attempting, even if similar projects have been attempted elsewhere, because the history of knowledge is necessarily different in different parts of the world. Even in studies of Brazil, it would be only prudent to use the plural forms, “histories” of “knowledges,” than the singular ones. There is, or at least there should be, an ecology (including a historical ecology) of knowledges, since different knowledges develop in and depend on different niches in different environments (Rosenberg, 1979ROSENBERG, Charles E. Towards an ecology of knowledge. In: Oleson, Alexandra; Voss, John (Ed.) The organization of knowledge in modern America, 1860-1920. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press p.440-455. 1979.).4 4 The phrase is becoming increasingly common in different contexts, from feminism to management.

This article presents an outline of a book that I am not writing and indeed do not know enough to write, although I should very much like to read a study of this topic. It offers a kind of bibliographical essay together with a few reflections on different ways in which the history of knowledge might be written in the case of Brazil, from colonial times to the present. In what follows I shall speak in the first person plural, assuming that some scholars will soon be interested, if they are not already interested, in this collective enterprise, whether they choose to pursue it individually, in teams or in informal groups.

One question is unavoidable at the start. What is knowledge? It may be useful to distinguish information (which is relatively “raw”) from “knowledge” (which has been processed or “cooked” in the sense of being verified, classified, and so on) (Burke, 2000BURKE, Peter Introduction. In: Burke, Peter. A social history of knowledge from Gutenberg to Diderot. Cambridge: Polity Press, p. 9-24. 2000. [Edição brasileira: Uma história social do conhecimento. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar. 2003.]). On the other hand, for historians, as for sociologists or anthropologists, it is not useful to distinguish knowledge from belief. I also doubt whether it is fruitful in practice to distinguish saber, a term occasionally used in historical contexts, from conhecimento (Horta, Petter, 2002HORTA, José Nunes; PETTER, Margarida. História do saber lexical brasileiro. São Paulo: Humanitas. 2002.; Schneider, 2013SCHNEIDER, João Ricardo. Breve história do conhecimento. Disponível em: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4Z-s6yIIKk>. Acesso em: 26 fev. 2018. 2013.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4Z-s6yI...
).

The current state of play

What has been done so far? A good deal has been published in the last thirty to forty years on the history of science in Brazil, including large collective volumes, mainly by Brazilian scholars but including some foreign contributions as well (Ferri, Motoyama, 1979-1980FERRI, Maria Guimarães; MOTOYAMA, Shozo (Ed.). História das ciências no Brasil. 3 v. São Paulo: Editora da Universidade de São Paulo. 1979-1980.; Dantes, 2001aDANTES, Maria Amélia (Ed.). Espaços de ciência no Brasil, 1800-1930. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Fiocruz. 2001a.; Motoyama et al., 2004MOTOYAMA, Shozo et al. Prelúdio para uma história: ciência e tecnologia no Brasil. São Paulo: Editora da Universidade de São Paulo. 2004.).5 5 For a critical guide to what has been published, see Kropf and Hochman (2011). Publications concentrate on the history of medicine, doubtless because Brazilian achievements are particularly notable in this field, especially from Oswaldo Cruz onwards (Stepan, 1976STEPAN, Nancy. Beginnings of Brazilian science: Oswaldo Cruz, medical research and policy, 1890-1920. New York: Science History Publications. 1976.; Benchimol, 1999BENCHIMOL, Jaime Larry. Dos micróbios aos mosquitos: febre amarela e revolução pasteuriana no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro:. Editora Fiocruz. 1999.; Peard, 1999PEARD, Julyan. Race, place and medicine: the idea of the tropics in 19th century Brazilian medicine. Durham: Duke University Press. 1999.). As their titles suggest, a number of these studies are concerned with the history of institutions as well as with the history of ideas (Carvalho, 1978CARVALHO, José Murilo de. A Escola de Minas de Ouro Preto. Rio de Janeiro: Companhia Editora Nacional. 1978.; Dantes, 1980DANTES, Maria Amélia. Institutos de pesquisa científica no Brasil. In: Ferri, Mário Guimarães; Motoyama, Shozo. História das ciências no Brasil. v. 2. São Paulo: Editora da Universidade de São Paulo. 1980.; Schartzman, 1991SCHWARTZMAN, Simon. A space for science: the development of the scientific community in Brazil. University Park PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. 1991.; Benchimol, Teixeira, 1993BENCHIMOL, Jaime Larry; TEIXEIRA, Luiz A. Cobras, largartos e outros bichos: uma história comparada dos institutos Oswaldo Cruz e Butantan. Rio de Janeiro: Editora UFRJ. 1993.; Lopes, 1997LOPES, Maria Margaret. O Brasil descobre a pesquisa científica: os museus e as ciências naturais no século XIX. São Paulo: Editora Hucitec. 1997.; Figueirôa, 1997FIGUEIRÔA, Silvia Fernanda de Mendonça. As ciências geológicas no Brasil: uma história social e institucional, 1875-1934. São Paulo: Editora Hucitec. 1997.; Dantes, 2001bDANTES, Maria Amélia. Introdução: uma história institucional das ciências no Brasil. In: Dantes, Maria Amélia (Org.). Espaços da ciência no Brasil, 1800-1930. p.13-22. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Fiocruz. 2001b.; Sá, 2006SÁ, Dominichi Miranda de. A ciência como profissão: médicos, bacharéis e cientistas no Brasil, 1895-1935. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Fiocruz. 2006.). The majority are concerned with the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Relatively little has been published on the history of science in the colonial period.6 6 An exception is Prestes (2000). Cf. Motoyama (2004).

The history of the social sciences in Brazil lags behind the history of the natural sciences. A few publications are concerned with the history of sociology, political science, anthropology, geography and of history itself (Fernandes, 1958FERNANDES, Florestan. A etnologia e a sociologia no Brasil. São Paulo: Editora Anhambi. 1958.; Miceli, 1989MICELI, Sérgio (Ed.). História das ciências sociais no Brasil. São Paulo: Vértice. 1989.; Forjaz, 1997FORJAZ, Maria Cecília Spina. A emergência da ciência política acadêmica no Brasil. Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais, v.12, n.35, s.p. Disponível em: <http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0102-69091997000300007>. Acesso em: 26 fev. 2018. 1997.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0102-69091997...
; Salzano, 2009SALZANO, Francisco M. A antropologia no Brasil: é a interdisciplinariadade possível? Amazônica, v.1, n.1, s.p. Disponível em: <http://dx.doi.org/10.18542/amazonica.v1i1.133>. Acesso em: 28 fev. 2018. 2009.
http://dx.doi.org/10.18542/amazonica.v1i...
; Guimarães, 1994GUIMARÃES, Lúcia Maria P. Debaixo da imediata proteção imperial: Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro (1838-1889). Tese (Doutorado) – Universidade de São Paulo, Faculdade de Filosofia. São Paulo. 1994.).7 7 For a more traditional approach to historiography, see Rodrigues (1979). Predictably, given the high status of this social type, several studies of Brazilian intellectuals have been published, one of them extending to seven volumes (Martins, 1977-1979MARTINS, Wilson. História da inteligência brasileira. 7 v. São Paulo: Editora Cultrix. 1977-1979.; Miceli, 2001MICELI, Sérgio. Intelectuais à brasileira. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras. 2001.; Souza, 2008SOUZA, Laura de Mello e. Brasil: literatura y “intelectuales” en el periodo colonial. In: Myers, Jorge (Ed.). La ciudad letrada: historia de las intelectuales en América Latina. Buenos Aires: Katz. 2008.). There is a tradition of books on the history of the book, together with some recent publications on the history of journalism (Sodré, 1966SODRÉ, Nelson Werneck. História da imprensa no Brasil. São Paulo: Civilização Brasileira. 1966.; Hallewell, 1982HALLEWELL, Laurence. Books in Brazil. Metuchen: The Scarecrow Press. 1982.; Deaecto, 2011DEAECTO, Marisa Midori. O Império dos livros. São Paulo: Editora da Universidade de São Paulo. 2011.; Ribeiro, 2000RIBEIRO, Lavina Madeira. Imprensa e espaço público, 1808-1964. Rio de Janeiro: E-papers. 2000.; Romancini, Lago, 2007ROMANCINI, Richard; LAGO, Cláudia. História do Jornalismo no Brasil. Florianópolis: Editora Insular. 2007.; Molina, 2015MOLINA, Matías M. História dos jornais no Brasil, v.1: 1500-1840. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras. 2015.). There is also a shelf of studies on the history of radio and television, but with a few exceptions, these studies pay relatively little attention to the use of the media to disseminate information or knowledge (Ortriwano, 1985ORTRIWANO, Gisela S. A informação no rádio. São Paulo: Summus Editorial. 1985.).

Two major lacunae require a mention here: studies of indigenous knowledge and, to a lesser extent, studies of universities. Indigenous knowledges have been attracting increasing attention from anthropologists, together with some geographers and economists, but not from historians (Voeks, 2007VOEKS, Robert A. Are women reservoirs of traditional plant knowledge? Gender, ethnobotany and globalization in Northeast Brazil. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, v.28, n.1, P.7-20. 2007.; Cunha, 2006CUNHA, Manuela Carneiro da. “Culture” and Culture: traditional knowledge and intellectual rights. Chicago IL: Prickly Paradigm Press. 2006., 2012CUNHA, Manuela Carneiro da. Savoirs autochtones: quelle nature, quels apports? Paris: Collège de France. 2012.; Castro, 2012CASTRO, Eduardo Viveiros de. Cosmological perspectivism in Amazonia and elsewhere. Manchester: HAU Journal of Ethnographic Theory. 2012.). However, these knowledges have a history, however difficult it may be to reconstruct it, especially before the years around 1900. In contrast, changes in the recent past are clear enough. Although the Convention on Biological Diversity held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 recognized the importance of indigenous knowledges and suggested measures for their protection, in an article published 15 years later, a researcher working on Northeastern Brazil noted a “crisis in ethnobotanical knowledge”, indeed, its possible extinction, because younger members of traditional communities were losing interest in it (Voeks, 2007VOEKS, Robert A. Are women reservoirs of traditional plant knowledge? Gender, ethnobotany and globalization in Northeast Brazil. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, v.28, n.1, P.7-20. 2007.).

Compared with the situation in many other parts of the world, there are few published studies of Brazilian universities, even considering the fact that the university was a relatively late arrival on the Brazilian intellectual scene. Several important studies of Brazilian science end in the 1930s, just when Universidade de São Paulo (USP) and Universidade do Distrito Federal (UDF) were established (Dantes, 2001aDANTES, Maria Amélia (Ed.). Espaços de ciência no Brasil, 1800-1930. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Fiocruz. 2001a.; Ferri, Motoyama, 1979-1980FERRI, Maria Guimarães; MOTOYAMA, Shozo (Ed.). História das ciências no Brasil. 3 v. São Paulo: Editora da Universidade de São Paulo. 1979-1980.; Figueirôa, 1997FIGUEIRÔA, Silvia Fernanda de Mendonça. As ciências geológicas no Brasil: uma história social e institucional, 1875-1934. São Paulo: Editora Hucitec. 1997.; Sá, 2006SÁ, Dominichi Miranda de. A ciência como profissão: médicos, bacharéis e cientistas no Brasil, 1895-1935. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Fiocruz. 2006.). The relatively recent proliferation of Brazilian universities (over five hundred in the public sector and over two thousand in the private sector) still awaits its historian. Looking at what has been published in this field, we find a remarkable contrast between a handful of articles on the comparative history of Brazilian universities and a seven-volume study of a single faculty in one of them (Veiga, 1980-1997VEIGA, Glaúcio. História das ideias da Faculdade de Direito no Recife. 7 v. Recife: Editora Universitária Universidade Federal de Pernambuco. 1980-1997.; Lefebvre, 1990LEFEBVRE, Jean-Paul. Les professeurs français des missions universitaires au Brésil (1934-1944), Cahiers du Brésil Contemporain, n.12. Disponível em: <http://www.revues.msh-paris.fr/vernumpub/8-J.P%20Lefebvre.pdf>. Acesso em 26 fev. 2018. 1990.
http://www.revues.msh-paris.fr/vernumpub...
; Fávero, 2006FÁVERO, Maria de Lourdes de Albuquerque. A Universidade no Brasil: das origens à reforma universitária de 1968. Educar, n.28, p.17-36. 2006.; Abdounur, Mattos, 2012ABDOUNUR, Oscar; MATTOS, Adriana Cesar de. The introduction of the European university system to Brazil. In: Renn, Jürgen (Ed.). The globalization of knowledge in history. Berlin: Routledge. 2012.).

The need to link the micro- and the macro-approaches to the production and dissemination of academic knowledge reproduces in miniature the general problem of actual and potential connections between knowledges, a problem that specialists usually ignore and that only generalists can address with any hope of success. How can we move on from here? How can our fragmented knowledge of knowledges be put together? In order to achieve a clear view of the history of Brazilian knowledges from different perspectives, we need more studies of the colonial period, of the humanities, and of indigenous traditions. Most of all, we need attempts at synthesis.

The immediate future

If we are trying to view Brazilian knowledge as a whole, two concepts that have been used more and more frequently in the last few years may be useful. The first is that of an ‘order of knowledge’ in the sense of a system or network, linking different knowledges, individuals, groups and institutions. The second is the concept of a “culture of knowledge,” reminding us that the knowledge acquired by individuals is shaped by the culture in which they grow up, as exiles become all too painfully aware when they begin to live and work in their new environment.8 8 On orders of knowledge, see Burke (2016, p, p.25-28); on cultures of knowledge, see the project directed by Howard Hotson, <www.culturesofknowledge.org/>; on exiles, see Burke (2017).

As usually happens, these concepts raise problems as well as solving them. The most obvious one is probably the least difficult to deal with: “order” and “system” are, or appear to be, static, while knowledges are in constant flux. However, historians are used to dealing with this problem, writing about “the feudal system” yet recognizing changes in the relations between lords and vassals over the centuries. The problem of intellectual frontiers – where one order or culture of knowledge ends and another one begins – requires more discussion.

In the first place, the concept of a single order or culture of knowledge in Brazil may well be too systematic, privileging links and encounters and neglecting gaps and “desencontros,” between local knowledges for instance, most obviously the indigenous knowledges that were and are separated by language as well as by space. It is probably wise to distinguish a dominant order of knowledge from subordinate, subjected or subaltern ones, but it would surely be a mistake to treat even that dominant order as monolithic. The academic realm is only part of the dominant order, and within it there is little communication between the “two cultures” of the humanities and the natural sciences, a gulf that was already noted more than half a century ago, in the case of Britain, by the physical chemist turned novelist C.P. Snow (2001)SNOW, C. P. The two cultures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2001.. Since Snow’s day, specialization has gone much further and it cannot be assumed that one kind of natural scientist, such as a physicist, knows what another kind, a zoologist, say, is doing.

In the second place, we face the opposite problem. The dominant order in Brazil was not and is not independent. In the colonial period, that order was shared (unequally) with Portugal, since Brazil had no press or university of its own. Since that time, two opposite trends are visible. One is the nationalization of knowledge, in Brazil as in so many other newly independent nineteenth-century states, a process illustrated by the foundation of the national archives, the renaming and reconstruction of the royal library as the Biblioteca Nacional de Brasil and of the royal museum as the Museu Nacional, the foundation of the Museu Histórico Nacional, the publication of the Grande Enciclopédia Portuguesa e Brasileira and so on.9 9 On the nationalization of knowledge, see Burke (2012, p, p.192-197), and Schwarcz, Dantas (2008). It is even possible to speak of the “nationalization of nature:” the Museu Paulista, for instance, displays vases containing water from the principal rivers of Brazil.

The opposite trend, coexisting with the first, as opposite trends often do, is that of the “denationalization” of Brazilian knowledge, its incorporation in a larger order or several different orders (Latin American, for instance, Western and global). This trend has often been described and analysed in terms of intellectual dependency (described more vividly by Brazilians as “aping,” macaqueação) a dependence first on the orders of knowledge dominant in France, Britain, Germany and the United States and today on a kind of global order.

One thinks, obviously, of the importance in Brazilian intellectual life of expatriate scholars, for instance, not only of Martius but also of the German zoologists Johann Baptist von Spix and Hermann von Ihering, the Swiss naturalists Louis Agassi and Émil Goeldi, the French physiologist Louis Couty, the Swedish botanist Albert Löfgren, the North American geologist John Casper Branner, the Austrian critic Otto Carpeaux and others, not to mention the collective mission française to Brazilian universities in the 1930s, when professors such as Fernand Braudel and Claude Lévi-Strauss, who both taught at USP, were able to deliver their lectures in French (Lefebvre, 1990LEFEBVRE, Jean-Paul. Les professeurs français des missions universitaires au Brésil (1934-1944), Cahiers du Brésil Contemporain, n.12. Disponível em: <http://www.revues.msh-paris.fr/vernumpub/8-J.P%20Lefebvre.pdf>. Acesso em 26 fev. 2018. 1990.
http://www.revues.msh-paris.fr/vernumpub...
). Today, we might think of the large numbers of foreign books, whether translated or in the original language, in the academic sections of bookshops, or of the numbers of Brazilians studying abroad, or of the extra credit given to professors who publish their articles in foreign-language journals.

All the same, it would surely be a mistake to explain intellectual dependency entirely by local demand for the foreign, important as that has been in Brazilian history. Foreigners have invested money and effort to implant their knowledges in Brazil. For example, the Ford Foundation played an important role in the establishment of the discipline of political science in Brazil in what has been called “a kind of enlightened cultural imperialism” (Forjaz, 1997FORJAZ, Maria Cecília Spina. A emergência da ciência política acadêmica no Brasil. Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais, v.12, n.35, s.p. Disponível em: <http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0102-69091997000300007>. Acesso em: 26 fev. 2018. 1997.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0102-69091997...
). As in the case of the economic history of Brazil, it may be useful to think in terms of centres and peripheries: innovative “centres of calculation” on one side and more traditional provincial knowledges on the other. In the general history of science, the point was vividly, crudely and controversially made by George Basalla (1967)BASALLA, George. The spread of Western science. Science, v.156, n.3775, p.611-622. 1967., writing about the export of what he called the “raw materials” of knowledge from the periphery to the centre, where they were processed (or, as I said earlier, “cooked”) and then re-exported.10 10 Cf. the critique by Chambers (1993), and Basalla (1967). On Brazil, see Kropf and Hochman (2011). Basalla’s model obviously needs refinement to take account of discoveries by scientists and scholars on the periphery, discoveries for which they have not always received due credit, and their creative adaptations of ideas coming from the centre. A distinction between “objective” and “subjective” peripheries might also be a useful one. In many countries, intellectuals suffer from what Australians call the “cultural cringe,” a sense of inferiority to colleagues who are fortunate enough to work in Paris, or in Harvard, or Cambridge.

Within Brazil, intellectual centres and peripheries have also existed and continue to exist. One way to put the idea of an order of knowledge into practice is to map the different sites of knowledge, or in the now famous phrase of Christian Jacob (2007)JACOB, Christian (Ed.). Lieux de savoir. Paris: Albin Michel. 2007., lieux de savoir (cf. Jacob, 2014JACOB, Christian. Qu’est ce qu’un lieu de savoir. Marseille: OpenEdition Press. 2014.). Jacob’s massive volumes follow the model of Pierre Nora’s still more massive project, lieux de mémoire. Nora’s initiative has been imitated in many countries, but Jacob’s has not, although a few Anglophone geographers do approach knowledge in this way (Livingstone, 2003LIVINGSTONE, David. Putting science in its place: geographies of scientific knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2003.; Finnegan, Wright, 2015FINNEGAN, Diarmid A.; WRIGHT, Jonathan J. (Ed.). Spaces of global knowledge: exhibition, encounter and exchange in an age of empire. Farnham: Ashgate. 2015.). The production of a collective volume on the history of “sites of knowledge” in Brazil would be a major step towards a synthesis.

Such a volume would require a map, or more exactly a series of maps, of knowledges in Brazil. Such maps might combine geography with chronology, noting the emergence and proliferation of different spaces such as bookshops, museums, academies, universities, foundations such as CNPq and so on, not forgetting temporary sites. These temporary sites include exhibitions, such as the Exposição de História do Brasil held in Rio de Janeiro in 1881 or the biennial book fairs in São Paulo, beginning in 1970, and also congresses, such as the Afro-Brazilian Congress held in Recife in 1934 or the ones that the Associação Nacional de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Ciências Sociais (ANPOCS) has been organizing since 1976 (Barbuy, 2011BARBUY, Heloísa. Cultura de exposições em São Paulo. In: Lopes, Maria Margaret; Heizer, Alda (Ed.). Colecionismos, práticos de campo e representações. Campina Grande: EDUEPB. p.255-266. 2011.). As a modest beginning, the appendix to this article offers a brief and incomplete chronology of important “places of knowledge” from the first Jesuit colleges, founded in the 1550s, to the twenty-first century.

Such maps might reveal major geo-cultural shifts such as the rise and fall of the North-East (Salvador, Olinda and Recife), followed by the rise and fall of Rio de Janeiro as the principal site of sites, followed by the rise of São Paulo from the 1890s onwards. The chronology provokes a question: Is São Paulo still dominant? Or is knowledge becoming detached from place, in Brazil as elsewhere? The chronology, incomplete as it is, also suggests a major shift from few sites of knowledge to many, a proliferation driven by the rise of the numbers of students, as the population has increased and higher education has been reaching a greater proportion of young people.

A final suggestion, returning to Martius, is that the history of knowledges in colonial Brazil might be written in terms of the interaction between what he called “the three races” and we might describe as “three cultures.” Gilberto Freyre was of course a pioneer in this field, since his studies of what he liked to call the “interpenetration” of cultures had a place for knowledges, among them the culinary knowledge of Afro-Brazilian cooks. If a history of the encounters between Portuguese-speaking Brazilians and indigenous knowledges comes to be written, a major theme in such a history will surely be hybridization.

The recent conflict over intellectual property in traditional medicine, involving the Krahó (a group from the state of Tocantins), and researchers from UNIFESP, offers a vivid example of this process. On one side, we find bio-prospectors wishing to make use of indigenous knowledge and on the other, an indigenous people working with lawyers and anthropologists to claim compensation for the dissemination of this knowledge. There has been a collision between two intellectual worlds, two cosmologies, but they appear to be commensurable – at least it has proved possible to translate from the language of one world into that of the other. This case also raises the awkward question, Whose intellectual property? That of the shamans (pajés)? That of all the Krahó? Or that of their neighbours as well (Kleba, 2008KLEBA, John B. Pajés, etnofarmácia e direitos tortuosos: o caso Krahó-Unifesp. Trabalho apresentado no 7. ESOCITE.BR. Brasília. Disponível em: <www.necso.ufrj.br/esocite2008/trabalhos/35972.doc>. Acesso em 27 fev. 2018. 2008.
www.necso.ufrj.br/esocite2008/trabalhos/...
, 2009KLEBA, John B. A socio-legal inquiry into the protection of disseminated traditional knowledge: learning from Brazilian cases. In: Kamau, Evanson C.; Winter, Gerd (Ed.) Genetic resources, traditional knowledge and the law. London: Earthscan. p.119-142. 2009.; Cunha, 2006CUNHA, Manuela Carneiro da. “Culture” and Culture: traditional knowledge and intellectual rights. Chicago IL: Prickly Paradigm Press. 2006.).

More generally, the history of knowledges in Brazil might be studied and written in terms of the interaction between what different groups of immigrants (Italians, Japanese, “Turks” and so on) brought with them and what was already in place when they arrived, or, still more generally, in terms of collisions, hybridizations and interpenetrations of different cultures of knowledge.

APPENDIX – SOME SITES OF KNOWLEDGE IN BRAZIL, 1552-2005

1552 Colégio Jesuíta, Salvador

1556 Colégio Jesuíta, Piratininga

1567 Colégio Jesuíta, Rio de Janeiro

1570s Colégio Jesuíta, Olinda

1675 Colégio Jesuíta, Recife

1792 Real Academia de Artilharia, Rio de Janeiro

1808 Impressão Régia, Rio de Janeiro

1808 Jardim Botânico, Rio de Janeiro

1808 Academia Real da Marinha, Rio de Janeiro

1808 Escola de Cirurgia, Salvador

1809 Academia Médico-Cirúrgica, Rio de Janeiro

1810 Biblioteca Real, Rio de Janeiro (now Biblioteca Nacional do Brasil)

1811 Academia Real Militar, Rio de Janeiro

1818 Museu Real, Rio de Janeiro (later Museu Nacional)

1825 Diário de Pernambuco, Recife

1827 Jornal do Commercio, Rio de Janeiro

1827 Observatório Nacional, Rio de Janeiro

1827 Faculdades de Direito, Olinda e São Paulo

1832 Faculdades de Medicina, Salvador e Rio de Janeiro

1827 Colégio D. Pedro II, Rio de Janeiro

1838 Arquivo Público do Império, Rio de Janeiro

1838 Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro, Rio de Janeiro

1839 Escola de Farmácia, Ouro Preto

1844 Livrarias Garnier abriram uma filial no Rio de Janeiro

1866 Museu de História Natural, Belém (now Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi)

1874 Escola Politécnica, Rio de Janeiro

1875 Estado de S.Paulo, São Paulo

1876 Escola de Minas, Ouro Preto

1881 Exposição de História do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro

1887 Instituto Agronômico, Campinas

1894 Escola Politécnica, São Paulo

1895 Museu Paulista, São Paulo

1896 Escola de Engenharia, Porto Alegre

1896 Faculdade Mackenzie, São Paulo

1897 Academia Brasileira de Letras, Rio de Janeiro

1899 Escola de Farmácia, São Paulo

1899 Instituto de Pesquisas Tecnológicas, São Paulo

1900 Instituto Soroterápico Federal, Rio de Janeiro (now Fundação Oswaldo Cruz)

1901 Escola de Agricultura, São Paulo

1901 Instituto Butantan, São Paulo

1902 Escola Prática do Comércio, São Paulo

1909 Expedição Rondon para a Amazônia

1912 Roquette Pinto viveu com os Nambikwara

1912 Universidade do Paraná

1914 Faculdade de Medicina, São Paulo

1916 Academia Brasileira de Ciências, Rio de Janeiro

1920 Universidade do Rio de Janeiro (later Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro)

1922 Museu Histórico Nacional, Rio de Janeiro

1925 Biblioteca Municipal, São Paulo (now Biblioteca Mário de Andrade)

1927 Universidade de Minas Gerais

1927 Instituto Biológico, São Paulo

1928 O Cruzeiro

1929 Museu do Estado de Pernambuco, Recife

1930 Museu da Inconfidência, Ouro Preto

1931 Livraria José Olympio inaugurada em São Paulo

1933 Escola Livre de Sociologia e Política, São Paulo

1934 Museu de Etnografia, São Paulo

1934 Universidade de São Paulo

1934 Mission française

1934 Livraria José Olympio transferida para o Rio de Janeiro

1934 Congresso Afro-Brasileiro, Recife

1935-1937 Universidade do Distrito Federal, Rio de Janeiro

1936-1960 Grande Enciclopédia Portuguesa e Brasileira

1937 Sociedade de Etnologia e Folclore

1940 Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio de Janeiro)

1940 Museu Imperial, Petrópolis

1944 Fundação Getulio Vargas, Rio de Janeiro

1944 Hospital das Clínicas, São Paulo

1946 Universidade da Bahia, Salvador

1946 Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (PUC-São Paulo)

1947 Livraria Cultura, São Paulo

1950 Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica, São José

1951 Conselho Nacional de Pesquisas (CNPq), atual Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico

1951 Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (Capes)

1962 Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (Fapesp)

1962 Universidade de Brasília

1966 Universidade de Campinas (Unicamp)

1969 Centro Brasileiro de Análise e Planejamento (Cebrap), São Paulo

1969 Instituto Universitário de Pesquisas do Rio de Janeiro (Iuperj)

1970 1ª Bienal Internacional do Livro, São Paulo

1976 Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp)

1976 Associação Nacional de Pós-graduação e Pesquisas em Ciências Sociais (Anpocs)

1982 Museu Afro-Brasileiro, Salvador

1983 Sociedade Brasileira de História da Ciência

1986 Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais

1988 1º Colóquio Brasileiro de História e Teoria do Conhecimento Geológico, Campinas

1992 Convenção sobre Diversidade Biológica, Rio de Janeiro

2001 Sociedade Brasileira de Gestão do Conhecimento, São Paulo

2004 1ª Semana Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia

2005 Biblioteca Brasiliana Guita e José Mindlin, USP

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This article develops themes presented in a paper at the conference “Sites of Invention: Latin America and the Global History of Historical and Anthropological Knowledge,” Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London, 9 June 2016. My thanks to participants for their questions and comments.

REFERENCES

  • ABDOUNUR, Oscar; MATTOS, Adriana Cesar de. The introduction of the European university system to Brazil. In: Renn, Jürgen (Ed.). The globalization of knowledge in history Berlin: Routledge. 2012.
  • BARBUY, Heloísa. Cultura de exposições em São Paulo. In: Lopes, Maria Margaret; Heizer, Alda (Ed.). Colecionismos, práticos de campo e representações Campina Grande: EDUEPB. p.255-266. 2011.
  • BASALLA, George. The spread of Western science. Science, v.156, n.3775, p.611-622. 1967.
  • BENCHIMOL, Jaime Larry. Dos micróbios aos mosquitos: febre amarela e revolução pasteuriana no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro:. Editora Fiocruz. 1999.
  • BENCHIMOL, Jaime Larry; TEIXEIRA, Luiz A. Cobras, largartos e outros bichos: uma história comparada dos institutos Oswaldo Cruz e Butantan. Rio de Janeiro: Editora UFRJ. 1993.
  • BURKE, Peter. Exiles and expatriates in the history of knowledge, 1500-2000 Lebanon NH: Brandeis University Press. 2017. [Edição brasileira: Perdas e ganhos: exilados e expatriados na história do conhecimento na Europa e nas Américas, 1500-2000. São Paulo: Unesp. 2017.]
  • BURKE, Peter. What is the history of knowledge? Cambridge: Polity Press. p.25-28. 2016. [Edição brasileira: O que é história do conhecimento? São Paulo: Unesp. 2015.]
  • BURKE, Peter. A social history of knowledge from the Encyclopédie to Wikipedia Cambridge: Polity Press. 2012. [Edição brasileira: Uma história social do conhecimento, II. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar. 2012.]
  • BURKE, Peter. The cultural history of intellectual practices: an overview. In: Fernández Sebastián, Javier (Ed.). Political concepts and time. Santander: Cantabria University Press. p.103-127. 2011.
  • BURKE, Peter. La historia intelectual en la era del giro cultural. Prismas: revista de historia intelectual, n.11, p.159-164. 2007.
  • BURKE, Peter Introduction. In: Burke, Peter. A social history of knowledge from Gutenberg to Diderot. Cambridge: Polity Press, p. 9-24. 2000. [Edição brasileira: Uma história social do conhecimento Rio de Janeiro: Zahar. 2003.]
  • CARVALHO, José Murilo de. A Escola de Minas de Ouro Preto Rio de Janeiro: Companhia Editora Nacional. 1978.
  • CASTRO, Eduardo Viveiros de. Cosmological perspectivism in Amazonia and elsewhere Manchester: HAU Journal of Ethnographic Theory. 2012.
  • CHAMBERS, David W. Locality and science: myths of centre and periphery. In: Lafuente, Antonio et al. (Ed.) Mundialización de la ciencia y cultura nacional. Madrid: Doce Calles. p.605-618. 1993.
  • CUNHA, Manuela Carneiro da. Savoirs autochtones: quelle nature, quels apports? Paris: Collège de France. 2012.
  • CUNHA, Manuela Carneiro da. “Culture” and Culture: traditional knowledge and intellectual rights. Chicago IL: Prickly Paradigm Press. 2006.
  • DANTES, Maria Amélia (Ed.). Espaços de ciência no Brasil, 1800-1930 Rio de Janeiro: Editora Fiocruz. 2001a.
  • DANTES, Maria Amélia. Introdução: uma história institucional das ciências no Brasil. In: Dantes, Maria Amélia (Org.). Espaços da ciência no Brasil, 1800-1930 p.13-22. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Fiocruz. 2001b.
  • DANTES, Maria Amélia. Institutos de pesquisa científica no Brasil. In: Ferri, Mário Guimarães; Motoyama, Shozo. História das ciências no Brasil v. 2. São Paulo: Editora da Universidade de São Paulo. 1980.
  • DEAECTO, Marisa Midori. O Império dos livros São Paulo: Editora da Universidade de São Paulo. 2011.
  • FÁVERO, Maria de Lourdes de Albuquerque. A Universidade no Brasil: das origens à reforma universitária de 1968. Educar, n.28, p.17-36. 2006.
  • FERNANDES, Florestan. A etnologia e a sociologia no Brasil São Paulo: Editora Anhambi. 1958.
  • FERRI, Maria Guimarães; MOTOYAMA, Shozo (Ed.). História das ciências no Brasil 3 v. São Paulo: Editora da Universidade de São Paulo. 1979-1980.
  • FIGUEIRÔA, Silvia Fernanda de Mendonça. As ciências geológicas no Brasil: uma história social e institucional, 1875-1934. São Paulo: Editora Hucitec. 1997.
  • FINNEGAN, Diarmid A.; WRIGHT, Jonathan J. (Ed.). Spaces of global knowledge: exhibition, encounter and exchange in an age of empire. Farnham: Ashgate. 2015.
  • FORJAZ, Maria Cecília Spina. A emergência da ciência política acadêmica no Brasil. Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais, v.12, n.35, s.p. Disponível em: <http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0102-69091997000300007> Acesso em: 26 fev. 2018. 1997.
    » http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0102-69091997000300007>
  • GUIMARÃES, Lúcia Maria P. Debaixo da imediata proteção imperial: Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro (1838-1889). Tese (Doutorado) – Universidade de São Paulo, Faculdade de Filosofia. São Paulo. 1994.
  • HALLEWELL, Laurence. Books in Brazil Metuchen: The Scarecrow Press. 1982.
  • HORTA, José Nunes; PETTER, Margarida. História do saber lexical brasileiro. São Paulo: Humanitas. 2002.
  • JACOB, Christian. Qu’est ce qu’un lieu de savoir Marseille: OpenEdition Press. 2014.
  • JACOB, Christian (Ed.). Lieux de savoir Paris: Albin Michel. 2007.
  • KLEBA, John B. A socio-legal inquiry into the protection of disseminated traditional knowledge: learning from Brazilian cases. In: Kamau, Evanson C.; Winter, Gerd (Ed.) Genetic resources, traditional knowledge and the law London: Earthscan. p.119-142. 2009.
  • KLEBA, John B. Pajés, etnofarmácia e direitos tortuosos: o caso Krahó-Unifesp. Trabalho apresentado no 7. ESOCITE.BR. Brasília. Disponível em: <www.necso.ufrj.br/esocite2008/trabalhos/35972.doc>. Acesso em 27 fev. 2018. 2008.
    » www.necso.ufrj.br/esocite2008/trabalhos/35972.doc
  • KROPF, Simone; HOCHMAN, Gilberto. From the beginnings: debates on the history of science in Brazil. Hispanic American Historical Review v.91, n.3, p.391-408. 2011.
  • LEFEBVRE, Jean-Paul. Les professeurs français des missions universitaires au Brésil (1934-1944), Cahiers du Brésil Contemporain, n.12. Disponível em: <http://www.revues.msh-paris.fr/vernumpub/8-J.P%20Lefebvre.pdf> Acesso em 26 fev. 2018. 1990.
    » http://www.revues.msh-paris.fr/vernumpub/8-J.P%20Lefebvre.pdf>
  • LIVINGSTONE, David. Putting science in its place: geographies of scientific knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2003.
  • LOPES, Maria Margaret. O Brasil descobre a pesquisa científica: os museus e as ciências naturais no século XIX. São Paulo: Editora Hucitec. 1997.
  • MARTINS, Wilson. História da inteligência brasileira 7 v. São Paulo: Editora Cultrix. 1977-1979.
  • MARTIUS, Carl Friedrich Philipp von. Como se deve escrever a história do Brasil. Revista do Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro, v.6, n.24, p.381-403. 1845.
  • MICELI, Sérgio. Intelectuais à brasileira São Paulo: Companhia das Letras. 2001.
  • MICELI, Sérgio (Ed.). História das ciências sociais no Brasil São Paulo: Vértice. 1989.
  • MOLINA, Matías M. História dos jornais no Brasil, v.1: 1500-1840. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras. 2015.
  • MOTOYAMA, Shozo. Período colonial: o Cruzeiro do Sul na terra do pau-brasil. In: Motoyama, Shozo (Org.). Prelúdio para uma história: ciência e tecnologia no Brasil. São Paulo: Edusp; Fapesp. p.59-117. 2004.
  • MOTOYAMA, Shozo et al. Prelúdio para uma história: ciência e tecnologia no Brasil. São Paulo: Editora da Universidade de São Paulo. 2004.
  • ORTRIWANO, Gisela S. A informação no rádio São Paulo: Summus Editorial. 1985.
  • PEARD, Julyan. Race, place and medicine: the idea of the tropics in 19th century Brazilian medicine. Durham: Duke University Press. 1999.
  • PRESTES, Maria Elice B. Investigação da natureza no Brasil Colônia São Paulo: Annablume. 2000.
  • RIBEIRO, Lavina Madeira. Imprensa e espaço público, 1808-1964 Rio de Janeiro: E-papers. 2000.
  • RODRIGUES, José Honório. História da história do Brasil: a historiografia colonial. São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional. 1979.
  • ROMANCINI, Richard; LAGO, Cláudia. História do Jornalismo no Brasil Florianópolis: Editora Insular. 2007.
  • ROSENBERG, Charles E. Towards an ecology of knowledge. In: Oleson, Alexandra; Voss, John (Ed.) The organization of knowledge in modern America, 1860-1920 Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press p.440-455. 1979.
  • SÁ, Dominichi Miranda de. A ciência como profissão: médicos, bacharéis e cientistas no Brasil, 1895-1935. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Fiocruz. 2006.
  • SALZANO, Francisco M. A antropologia no Brasil: é a interdisciplinariadade possível? Amazônica, v.1, n.1, s.p. Disponível em: <http://dx.doi.org/10.18542/amazonica.v1i1.133> Acesso em: 28 fev. 2018. 2009.
    » http://dx.doi.org/10.18542/amazonica.v1i1.133>
  • SCHNEIDER, João Ricardo. Breve história do conhecimento. Disponível em: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4Z-s6yIIKk> Acesso em: 26 fev. 2018. 2013.
    » https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4Z-s6yIIKk>
  • SCHWARCZ, Lilia; DANTAS, Regina. O Museu do Imperador: quando colecionar é representar a nação. Revista do Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros, n.46, p.123-164. 2008.
  • SCHWARTZMAN, Simon. A space for science: the development of the scientific community in Brazil. University Park PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. 1991.
  • SNOW, C. P. The two cultures Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2001.
  • SODRÉ, Nelson Werneck. História da imprensa no Brasil São Paulo: Civilização Brasileira. 1966.
  • SOUZA, Laura de Mello e. Brasil: literatura y “intelectuales” en el periodo colonial. In: Myers, Jorge (Ed.). La ciudad letrada: historia de las intelectuales en América Latina. Buenos Aires: Katz. 2008.
  • STEPAN, Nancy. Beginnings of Brazilian science: Oswaldo Cruz, medical research and policy, 1890-1920. New York: Science History Publications. 1976.
  • TY, Michelle. On the cognitive turn in literary studies. Qui Parle, v.19, n.1, p.205-219. 2010.
  • VEIGA, Glaúcio. História das ideias da Faculdade de Direito no Recife 7 v. Recife: Editora Universitária Universidade Federal de Pernambuco. 1980-1997.
  • VOEKS, Robert A. Are women reservoirs of traditional plant knowledge? Gender, ethnobotany and globalization in Northeast Brazil. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, v.28, n.1, P.7-20. 2007.

NOTES

  • 1
  • 2
    An expanded version can be found in Burke (2011)BURKE, Peter. The cultural history of intellectual practices: an overview. In: Fernández Sebastián, Javier (Ed.). Political concepts and time. Santander: Cantabria University Press. p.103-127. 2011..
  • 3
    My apologies to anyone whose contribution I have overlooked.
  • 4
    The phrase is becoming increasingly common in different contexts, from feminism to management.
  • 5
    For a critical guide to what has been published, see Kropf and Hochman (2011)KROPF, Simone; HOCHMAN, Gilberto. From the beginnings: debates on the history of science in Brazil. Hispanic American Historical Review. v.91, n.3, p.391-408. 2011..
  • 6
    An exception is Prestes (2000)PRESTES, Maria Elice B. Investigação da natureza no Brasil Colônia. São Paulo: Annablume. 2000.. Cf. Motoyama (2004)MOTOYAMA, Shozo. Período colonial: o Cruzeiro do Sul na terra do pau-brasil. In: Motoyama, Shozo (Org.). Prelúdio para uma história: ciência e tecnologia no Brasil. São Paulo: Edusp; Fapesp. p.59-117. 2004..
  • 7
    For a more traditional approach to historiography, see Rodrigues (1979)RODRIGUES, José Honório. História da história do Brasil: a historiografia colonial. São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional. 1979..
  • 8
    On orders of knowledge, see Burke (2016, pBURKE, Peter. What is the history of knowledge? Cambridge: Polity Press. p.25-28. 2016. [Edição brasileira: O que é história do conhecimento? São Paulo: Unesp. 2015.], p.25-28); on cultures of knowledge, see the project directed by Howard Hotson, <www.culturesofknowledge.org/>; on exiles, see Burke (2017)BURKE, Peter. Exiles and expatriates in the history of knowledge, 1500-2000. Lebanon NH: Brandeis University Press. 2017. [Edição brasileira: Perdas e ganhos: exilados e expatriados na história do conhecimento na Europa e nas Américas, 1500-2000. São Paulo: Unesp. 2017.].
  • 9
    On the nationalization of knowledge, see Burke (2012, pBURKE, Peter. A social history of knowledge from the Encyclopédie to Wikipedia. Cambridge: Polity Press. 2012. [Edição brasileira: Uma história social do conhecimento, II. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar. 2012.], p.192-197), and Schwarcz, Dantas (2008)SCHWARCZ, Lilia; DANTAS, Regina. O Museu do Imperador: quando colecionar é representar a nação. Revista do Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros, n.46, p.123-164. 2008..
  • 10
    Cf. the critique by Chambers (1993)CHAMBERS, David W. Locality and science: myths of centre and periphery. In: Lafuente, Antonio et al. (Ed.) Mundialización de la ciencia y cultura nacional. Madrid: Doce Calles. p.605-618. 1993., and Basalla (1967)BASALLA, George. The spread of Western science. Science, v.156, n.3775, p.611-622. 1967.. On Brazil, see Kropf and Hochman (2011)KROPF, Simone; HOCHMAN, Gilberto. From the beginnings: debates on the history of science in Brazil. Hispanic American Historical Review. v.91, n.3, p.391-408. 2011..

Publication Dates

  • Publication in this collection
    Jul-Sep 2018

History

  • Received
    10 Oct 2017
  • Accepted
    4 Dec 2017
Casa de Oswaldo Cruz, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz Av. Brasil, 4365, 21040-900 , Tel: +55 (21) 3865-2208/2195/2196 - Rio de Janeiro - RJ - Brazil
E-mail: hscience@fiocruz.br