Wissen produzieren, lokalisieren und imaginieren. Von „falschen Karten“ und „wissenschaftlichen Expeditionen“ in der Auseinandersetzung um Guyana (1880er bis 1900er Jahre)

Abstract

Producing, Localising, and Imagining Knowledge. On "false maps" and "scientific expeditions" in the Brazilian-French Debates about Guyana (1880s-1900s). This paper analyses the interferences between knowledge production, space and colonial claims from translocal, actor-based perspectives. Due to its 'thickness' the examined material, found particularly at the Perthes collection (Gotha/Germany), allows multifaceted views on a topic which influences our scientific knowledge-based world views. In his writings the Swiss naturalist Emil Göldi underlined his point of view that was both 'Brazilianized' and scientific. Especially his letters and articles between the 1880s and the 1900s are testimony to his positioning in situ ('an Ort und Stelle') against the cartographic 'alienated'-colonial perspectives of French scientists, especially those of his counterpart Henri Coudreau. Sometimes it reads more like an adventure story than a scholarly debate. By working with and using the internationally renowned periodical Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen (Perthes), Göldi managed to design an image of the spatial situation that convinced the deciding people and thus to obtain for Brazil a huge territory in the Eastern part of the Guyanas.