Interior History: Rethinking Space and Nation in Brazil

内部历史：重新思考巴西的空间和国家

• 批准号: AH/T007656/1
• 负责人: Jacob Blanc
• 金额: $ 4.39万
• 依托单位: University of Edinburgh
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FT007656%2F1
• 关键词: Interior; History; Rethinking; Space; Nation

In the five centuries of European presence in Brazil, a contrast has developed between the coastal and interior regions. The coastal areas around Rio de Janeiro and Salvador have been depicted as the centre of 'civilised' and 'modern' society, inhabited by European-descendant elites seen as the creators of national culture and politics. In contrast, the vast interior regions have been stigmatized as the so-called 'backlands'. As the perpetual foil to the more advanced coast, the backlands have stood as an imagined spaced useful only for its natural resources and the labour of its local populations. Over hundreds of years, this traditional view has become implanted in national imaginations, where the interior is relegated to the conceptual and political periphery of Brazil.To challenge the dominant narrative between coast and interior, this project re-examines Brazilian history from the inside, a framework that we call 'interior history'. Seeking to invert the conceptual and geographic boundaries often used to study the history of Brazil-and of Latin America more broadly-we show how the people and spaces of the interior have been central to the development of national identities, politics, economy, and culture.Brazil is an ideal case study as it both engages and disrupts the historiographical focus on frontiers. In Brazil, the interior is similar to a traditional frontier with its histories of exploration and state-formation, yet it is imbued with cultural tropes of backwardness that, unlike frontiers, are resistant to settlement. And moreover, there is no single 'interior'-either geographically or in the national imagination. By asking what, if anything, changes when we use interior rather than frontier, our project will rethink the formation of space and nation.Bringing together a research team of fourteen historians, cultural scholars, and social scientists from Brazil, the United Kingdom, and the United States, we aim to show how an interior history of Brazil-and by extension, of other countries across and beyond Latin America-can not only challenge the assumed hierarchies and boundaries between regions, but also recapture the agency of communities long-stigmatised as inconsequential to national narratives.We will produce two outputs: an edited volume where each chapter uses an interior perspective to revisit a seminal moment in Brazilian history, and an interactive digital atlas that integrates each chapter from the book. The edited volume-to be published in English and Portuguese versions-will showcase the work of both established and up-and-coming scholars from multiple countries and disciplines. Through its individual chapter contributions and also the collective cohesion of its case studies, the book will open new intellectual terrain for studying Brazilian history. Although the online visualization was initially designed as a digital companion to the more traditional academic output of the edited book, it has acquired even greater importance in the aftermath of the devastating fire at the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro in August 2018. One of the greatest losses of historical documents in recorded history, the fire has challenged scholars and archivists across Brazil and abroad to think about how to preserve historical patrimony in the twenty-first century. So along with providing an innovative tool to explore numerous case studies from the past 500 years of Brazil's interior history, the online atlas will showcase how a digital humanities project can offer a new platform for making historical knowledge accessible to public audiences.The project's Principal Investigator (PI) is Dr Jacob Blanc, a lecturer in Latin American history at the University of Edinburgh and an expert on rural Brazil. The Co-Investigator (Co-I) is Professor Lúcia Sá, an expert in Brazilian literature and indigenous cultures at the University of Manchester.

在欧洲人在巴西存在的五个世纪中，沿海地区和内陆地区之间形成了鲜明的对比。里约热内卢和萨尔瓦多周围的沿海地区被描述为“文明”和“现代”社会的中心，居住着被视为国家文化和政治创造者的欧洲后裔精英。相比之下，广大的内陆地区则被污蔑为所谓的“边远地区”。作为更先进海岸的永久陪衬，边远地区一直是一个想象中的空间，仅对其自然资源和当地居民的劳动力有用。数百年来，这种传统观点已经根植于国家想象中，内陆地区被降级为巴西的概念和政治边缘。为了挑战海岸和内陆之间的主导叙事，这个项目从内部重新审视巴西历史，我们称之为“内陆历史”的框架。为了颠倒研究巴西以及更广泛的拉丁美洲历史时常用的概念和地理界限，我们展示了内陆地区的人民和空间如何成为国家身份、政治、经济和文化发展的核心。巴西是一个理想的研究案例，因为它既吸引又破坏了史学对边疆的关注。在巴西，内陆地区类似于传统的边疆，有着探索和国家形成的历史，但它充满了落后的文化特征，与边疆不同，它抵制定居。而且，无论是在地理上还是在国家想象中，都不存在单一的“内部”。通过询问当我们使用内部而不是边境时会发生什么变化（如果有的话），我们的项目将重新思考空间和国家的形成。我们汇集了来自巴西、英国和美国的 14 名历史学家、文化学者和社会科学家组成的研究团队，旨在展示巴西的内部历史以及拉丁美洲以外的其他国家的内部历史不仅能够挑战假定的等级制度和地区之间的界限， 我们将生产两种成果：一本编辑卷，其中每一章都使用内部视角来重温巴西历史上的一个重要时刻；以及一本整合了书中每一章的交互式数字地图集。编辑后的卷将以英语和葡萄牙语版本出版，将展示来自多个国家和学科的知名学者和新晋学者的工作。通过各个章节的贡献以及案例研究的集体凝聚力，这本书将为研究巴西历史开辟新的知识领域。尽管在线可视化最初被设计为更传统的编辑书籍学术成果的数字伴侣，但在 2018 年 8 月里约热内卢国家博物馆发生毁灭性火灾后，它变得更加重要。这场火灾是有记载的历史上最严重的历史文献损失之一，它向巴西国内外的学者和档案管理员提出了挑战，要求他们思考如何保护 21 世纪的历史遗产。因此，除了提供创新工具来探索过去 500 年巴西内陆历史的大量案例研究外，在线地图集还将展示数字人文项目如何提供一个新平台，让公众了解历史知识。该项目的首席研究员 (PI) 是爱丁堡大学拉丁美洲历史讲师、巴西农村问题专家 Jacob Blanc 博士。联合研究员（Co-I）是曼彻斯特大学巴西文学和土著文化专家 Lúcia Sá 教授。