MÍMESIS E GEOGRAFIA HUMANA NO MÉTODO DE PAUL VIDAL DE LA BLACHE

Guilherme Da Silva Ribeiro

doi:10.4215/rm2020.e19029

Abstract

Based on the concept of mimesis elaborated by the Brazilian literature theorist Luiz Costa Lima Brazilian scholar, this article aims to analyse the Vidalian human geography. Its particular use of description and its capacity of metamorphosing environmental elements into geographical categories able to revealing the French national identity under the long-run time show how complex and relevant its method is.

Highlights

A thematic affinity has attracted part of our generation to the history and epistemology of the geography formed at the beginning of the last century; they were probably dissatisfied with the hegemonic interpretations available in Portuguese
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, each reading of a text authored by Paul Vidal de la Blache, Friedrich Ratzel, or Halford John Mackinder confirmed that our intuition was on the right track: their writings had little or nothing to do with what we were learning under the label of "traditional" geography
What is fundamental in the phenomenon of mimesis is the correspondence established between a particular work - the second scene - and parameters that guide the receiver (COSTA LIMA 2000: 22). Transfering this reasoning to geography, we argue that geographic mimesis, as we interpret it, is the antithesis of the dichotomous determinist-possibilist Febvrian model and the puerile view of geography as an empirical and immobile scenario for human action (FEBVRE 1922)

Summary

Introduction

A thematic affinity has attracted part of our generation to the history and epistemology of the geography formed at the beginning of the last century; they were probably dissatisfied with the hegemonic interpretations available in Portuguese. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, each reading of a text authored by Paul Vidal de la Blache, Friedrich Ratzel, or Halford John Mackinder confirmed that our intuition was on the right track: their writings had little or nothing to do with what we were learning under the label of "traditional" geography. A rapid survey of the distribution of grants by funding agencies may confirm this preference. This disdain has several consequences, especially a superficial knowledge of geography's general trajectory and the classics' relegation to a past to which today's doors are firmly closed. Some of the lessons learned need to be called into question

Objectives

Methods

Conclusion