The brazilian wars of independence: a conceptual history approach

• Grant number: 25/00405-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: July 01, 2025
• End date: June 30, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - History of Brazil
• Principal Investigator: João Paulo Garrido Pimenta
• Grantee: Davi Perides Roizman
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This master's project aims to identify, analyze and compare words, languages, concepts, metaphors and expressions used to designate the Brazilian wars of independence during the period in which they occurred (1822-1824). The intention is to problematize these armed conflicts as conceptual realities, considering the power they will later have in informing historiographical interpretations of the process of Brazilian Independence in which the relevance of those wars was diminished. Derived from an undergraduate historical research supported by FAPESP, this project intends to continue the efforts to understand the emergence of two Brazilian national myths: one, that the brazilian Independence would have been a predominantly peaceful and orderly process, since slavery, the monarchy and the territorial unity were preserved, in contrast to the Hispanic independences, which were supposedly characterized by anarchy and disorder; and, its corollary, that Brazil would be a country whose history, essentially, would not contain episodes of significant violence. Two kinds of sources were selected to be read, filed and analysed: first, the diaries of the Cortes de Lisboa and the annals of the National Constituent Assembly of 1823, which registered part of the debates held by the elected representatives regarding the challenge of constitutionalizing the Portuguese Empire and the Empire of Brazil in those years. And, second, newspapers, which composed the birth of public spaces for political discussion in Brazil at the time. The theoretical formulations developed by Reinhart Koselleck and Javier Fernández Sebastián will guide the analysis of the sources, so that the linguistic uses of the wars of independence in Parliament and in the Press can be understood both as conditions of possibility for their realization and as indicators of extralinguistic states of things. (AU)