Fernand Braudel, Brazil, and the Empire of French Social Science

Abstract

These previously untranslated essays by Fernand Braudel are invaluable sources for understanding the social sciences in a formative moment, as well as the relationship between French intellectuals and the colonial world. Published in Portuguese at the University of São Paulo during Braudel's tenure there between 1935 and 1938, they are translated into English here to make them more widely available to historians of France. “The Concept of a New Country” compares and contrasts the semicolonial relationship of Brazil and Algeria to Europe, and “The Teaching of History and Its Guidelines” sheds light onto Braudel's specific interdisciplinary interventions and how Brazil was part of a restructuring of the field of history in France. As a preface to the essays, I contextualize Braudel's tenure in Brazil and develop certain arguments of the essays so that readers less familiar with Brazil and the French university missions can grasp their full implications. Ces essais de Fernand Braudel, nouvellement traduits, sont des sources pour comprendre les sciences sociales à un moment formateur, ainsi que le rapport entre les intellectuels français et le monde colonial. Publiés en portugais à l'Université de São Paulo pendant que Braudel y donnait des cours entre 1935 et 1938, ils sont publiés ici en anglais pour les rendre plus accessibles aux historiens étrangers. « The Concept of a New Country » compare le rapport semi-colonial du Brésil et de l'Algérie avec l'Europe, et « The Teaching of History and Its Guidelines » offre une perspective sur l'interdisciplinarité braudelienne, comme sur la manière dont le Brésil a contribué à la restructuration du champ de l'histoire en France. Dans sa préface à ces essais, Ian Merkel analyse le séjour de Braudel au Brésil, pour que les lecteurs puissent mieux comprendre les missions universitaires françaises et leur importance.

AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF INTELLECTUAL EXCHANGE: Interactions, Transactions and Ethics in Asia and Beyond

“…Moreover, if one problem with much existing work on intellectual exchange has been its tendency towards particularist descriptivism, leaving its core concept 'undertheorized' (Merkel 2021), then anthropologists have much to offer the emergent conversations surrounding the term. While an attention to the complexities of scale, an open-mindedness regarding who or what should be encompassed within an account of 'intellectual exchange' , and a critical attention to the cultural politics of the category 'intellectual' are not unique to anthropologists, they are all points on which anthropologists, by virtue of their training, are well positioned to make key contributions.…”

“…Attention to intellectual exchange not only highlights the agency of populations widely depicted as 'receiving' ideas and techniques from external sources, it also reveals the ways in which the generation of those ideas is itself a collaborative and often transcultural affair. Ian Merkel (2017Merkel ( , 2022, for example, shows how various celebrated French intellectuals, including Claude Lévi-Strauss, Roger Bastide and Ferdinand Braudel, have been 'remembered for their brilliance even when their work was indeed a much more collective production ' (2017: 145). Merkel uses archival evidence to demonstrate that the time these thinkers spent living in Brazil and engaging with Brazilian intellectuals had a formative influence upon ideas and styles of analysis that would subsequently be considered quintessentially 'French' .…”

“…This point should not be controversial among anthropologists, whose fieldwork is frequently peppered with vibrant and thought-provoking discussions and debates (see, e.g., Bloch 2005;Marsden 2005). However, it stands at odds with a long academic tradition of foregrounding particular cultural elites -those who are understood as 'intellectuals' or 'intelligentsia' -in discussions of both intellectual exchange and the wider sociology of intellectual life (see, e.g., Fatsis 2016;Merkel 2021). Clearly, the question of whether subjects consider themselves to be 'intellectuals' or are seen as such by their interlocutors could have significant bearings on how any intellectual exchange unfolds.…”

“…Moreover, by revealing how collective processes of dialogue and collaboration are integral to the generation and circulation of ideas, such studies displace commonplace narratives of 'individual brilliance' or the 'hegemonic imposition' of epistemological frameworks in favour of more subtle and equitable attributions of responsibility for intellectual developments (see e.g. Lewis 2004;Merkel 2017). Paradoxically, however, while this literature has made important contributions by insisting upon the centrality of exchange to intellectual history, there has been, as Merkel (2021) notes, a tendency to leave intellectual exchange itself undertheorized.…”

“…Lewis 2004;Merkel 2017). Paradoxically, however, while this literature has made important contributions by insisting upon the centrality of exchange to intellectual history, there has been, as Merkel (2021) notes, a tendency to leave intellectual exchange itself undertheorized. A second important strand of scholarship on the practice of intellectual exchange thus comes from philosophical anthropologists and participant observers of intellectual settings who examine how factors ranging from linguistic conventions to institutional hierarchies can either facilitate or impede the articulation and circulation of ideas and knowledge (e.g.…”