Republican Cultural Diplomacy: The Role of the Department of Propaganda and Economic Expansion of Brazil in Foreign Countries and the National Image Created through Maps and Postcards (1907-1910)

• Grant number: 25/06486-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: November 01, 2025
• End date: October 31, 2028
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - History of Brazil
• Principal Investigator: Iris Kantor
• Grantee: Nathalia Henrich
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The project aims to analyze the role of the Brazilian Propaganda and Expansion Service Abroad (SPEBE) during the early years of the Republic, seeking to answer the questions: 1. How does the Brazilian Propaganda and Expansion Service Abroad fit into the republican project of promoting Brazil abroad? 2. What image of Brazil did the Republic intend to export? 3. How do the maps and postcards produced as dissemination tools fit into this project and what image did they project? The project proposes the use of non-textual sources for the study of the history of Brazilian diplomacy and foreign policy, contributing to theoretical-methodological reflections for the area of historical cartography and studies on the history of photography and iconology, as well as for the areas of history of foreign policy and Brazilian diplomacy, history of ideas, political history, Brazilian political and social thought, and history of the Brazilian Republic. The hypotheses suggest that the creation of SPEBE represented the first institutional attempt to establish guidelines for cultural diplomacy and that the production of maps and postcards reflected an image and, ultimately, a national republican project, which was that of a modern, urban, and predominantly white Brazil, meeting the Eurocentric criteria for inclusion in the concert of civilized nations. (AU)