"Gold earrings, calico skirts": images of women and their role in the project to civilize the Amazon, as observed by Elizabeth Agassiz in Viagem ao Brasil: 1865-1866Abstracts
The article analyzes the image of the Amazonian woman as represented by Elizabeth Agassiz in Viagem ao Brasil: 1865-1866, published in Europe in 1867 and based on the diary of the Thayer scientific expedition, led by the naturalist Louis Agassiz. The study concentrates on records of their passage through the Amazon, as retold in chapters IV through XI. For the purpose of this analysis, a few basic points in the divergence between the chronicler's Western logic and the local population's lifestyle have been chosen, as evidenced in the text: the clash with Agassiz's viewpoints on feminine autonomy, aesthetics, temporalities, and, lastly, the Westerners' determinist conceptions regarding the negativity of miscegenation and regarding the Amazonian reality, based on polygenism of creationist inspiration. The article also discusses the era's perspectives regarding the role of the Amazon within the project of the Brazilian nation.