An illusory world is not enough: understanding how brazilian territory is constructed

Abstract

Joao Marcelo Ehlert Maia is a lecturer in Sociology at the Upper School of Social Sciences at the Center for Research and Documentation of Modern Brazilian History at the Getulio Vargas Foundation (Cpdoc-FGV), Rio de Janeiro. It was within the precincts of this institution that the research was conducted that led to the origins of the book Estado, territorio e imaginacao espacial [The State, territory and spatial imagination]. O caso da Fundacao Brasil Central [The case of the Central Brazilian Foundation is based on a subject that is kept strictly within the parameters of its inquiries into the relationship between the geographical category ¨space¨ and Brazilian social thought. In reality, the outcome is a continuation of the thesis published in 2008 – A terra como invencao [The land as invention] – in which there is an analysis of both the concept of space during the First Republic and the importance of this category in the interpretation of the country conducted by important intellectuals like Euclides de Cunha and Vicente Licinio Cardoso. By referring to the archives of Joao Alberto Lins de Barros, which were donated to Cpdoc in 1997, in his new book Maia discusses the relationship between the construction of spatial illusion and the practices of the State in its territory, which are crystallized in the projects carried out by the Central Brazil Foundation (FBC).