"We identify with civilization, within civilization": Urban self-images in the Sertões of Bahia¹

Abstract

The article looks at the urban self-images constructed by the petty sertaneja intelligentsia in the early twentieth century in Bahia. Drawing on texts from memoirs, the local press, and the use made of photography, I investigate some of these images of the interior as opposed to those crystallized in the national imagination, especially after the impact of Euclides da Cunha's Os Sertões. The objective was to try to identify how local towns appear in these images and how the latter contributed to the construction of an urban public space in the interior of Bahia identified with civilization, which in my opinion was different from what was built in external perspectives.

self-images; Sertão; civilization