Physical anthropology and the description of the 'savage' in the Brazilian Anthropological Exhibition of 1882

Abstract

This paper discusses attempts to popularize scientific knowledge about anthropology through exhibitions of natives in the United States and Brazil from the nineteenth century to the beginnings of the twentieth century. In the First Brazilian Anthropological Exposition (Rio de Janeiro, 1882), a group of Botocudos was characterized in a manner that can be related to the reification of the myth of the savage, an important part of the European culture that played a significant role in the construction of anthropological knowledge in the nineteenth century. From the analyses of such exhibitions, we derive implications for science popularization and education, concerning the ideological undertones of scientific knowledge.

Othering Processes and STS Curricula: From Nineteenth Century Scientific Discourse on Interracial Competition and Racial Extinction to Othering in Biomedical Technosciences

“…(1996, 2010). See alsoCorrea (1998),Graham (1990), Sa ´nchez Arteaga (2009), Sa ´nchez Arteaga and El-Hani (2010),Schwarcz (1993),Seyferth (1985),Skidmore (1976),Stepan (1991).6 On the First Brazilian Anthropological Exposition, seeLanger and Rankel (2004),Andermann (2005), Sa ´nchez Arteaga andEl-Hani (2010). The Brazilian Anthropological Exposition Magazine ('Revista da Exposic ¸a ˜o Antropolo ´gica Brazileira') can be downloaded at http://www.obrasraras.museunacional.ufrj.…”