The spacetimes in Brazil: territoriality and plurality of historical times (c.1820 - c.1830)

• Grant number: 17/16756-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: February 01, 2018
• End date: January 31, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - History of Brazil
• Principal Investigator: João Paulo Garrido Pimenta
• Grantee: Thomáz Fortunato
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research, developed since July 2016, intends to identify and analyze the temporal dimensions of the rhythms of social appropriation of space in Portuguese America and in Brazil through human movement within these territories. It is a research developed from a collective project that intends to measure, broadly speaking, the social spacetimes in Portuguese America and in Brazil between the XVIII and XIX centuries and their relations with the formation of the Brazilian territory. It is intended to investigate the tendencies of the acceleration of historical times. By comparing the variation of spacetime data it becomes possible to indicate the relative shortening of space through the observation of the changes on time intervals in motion on space. The spacetime, generally speaking, constitutes one form of configuration of space by temporal measures. This category of analysis allows the identification of the tendencies of acceleration of historical times from the relative shortening of space and can be empirically pursued by looking at the transformations of the rhythms of movement in a determined spatial extension that structures a set of social and economic relations. With this research project, a specific periodization of the collective project it is aimed: 1820-1830. Thereby the mensuration of time from spatial movement in a particular stage of the territorial formation of the country, including its process of independence, becomes a central unity of analysis. (AU)