Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: CAIO FERREIRA ROCHA

Uma banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO de MESTRADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
DISCENTE : CAIO FERREIRA ROCHA
DATA : 11/06/2025
HORA: 14:00
LOCAL: Google Meet (meet.google.com/qbi-rcgi-aft)
TÍTULO:

Travel Literature: The construction of nineteenth-century Aracati based on accounts by travelers and naturalists.

PALAVRAS-CHAVES:

Travel Reports. Local History. Naturalism. 19th Century. Science.

PÁGINAS: 109
GRANDE ÁREA: Ciências Humanas
ÁREA: História
RESUMO:

This dissertation investigates representations of the city of Aracati, in Ceará, based on reports by foreign travelers and naturalists from the 19th century. Structured in three chapters, the research proposes a critical historiographical analysis of travel literature as a source for understanding the construction of social, environmental and urban imaginaries about 19th-century Aracati. The first chapter explores the field of travel literature, situating it within the historiographical debate and discussing its interconnections with fiction and reality. Drawing on authors such as Mary Louise Pratt and Michel Foucault, the author analyzes how travel accounts, although they have descriptive and scientific pretensions, are permeated by subjectivities, ideological intentions, and Eurocentric views. The author also addresses the origins of this type of literature in Brazil and its
instrumentalization by colonial and imperial projects. The second chapter discusses naturalism as a tool for reading the landscape and local societies in the 19th century. By analyzing the role of European naturalists and their methods of describing and classifying nature, we highlight how these practices were intertwined with scientific and economic projects linked to European expansionism. In this context, Aracati is interpreted as a space for scientific observation and symbolic appropriation, where the natural landscape and human groups were described from the perspective of Western science. In the third chapter, the research focuses specifically on the accounts of travelers such as Henry Koster, George Gardner, Francisco Freire Alemão and others who visited or wrote about Aracati. Based on these records, the representations of the city, its urban landscape, economic activities, cultural practices and social organization are analyzed. The chapter highlights the tensions between the foreign vision and the local reality, as well as the persistence of stereotypes of “backwardness” and “progress” in the travelers’ descriptions. Finally, the dissertation proposes the pedagogical use of these accounts as instruments for valuing and redefining local history in History Teaching. Thus, the dissertation aims to contribute not only to the field of regional historiography and intellectual history, but also to the debate on historical sources and the possibilities of working with local history in schools based on narrative and documentary sources.

MEMBROS DA BANCA:
Externa à Instituição - ANA LUNARA DA SILVA MORAIS - UFCG
Interno - 5373 - ANDRÉ VICTOR CAVALCANTI SEAL DA CUNHA
Presidente - 12259 - Leonardo Cândido Rolim