Portuguese Geography, tropics and late colonialism

History and philosophy of geography I: Heterodox progress, critical scepticism and intellectual voluminosity

“…Connecting with ongoing efforts to ‘decolonise’ and ‘radicalise’ histories of geographies (Ferretti, 2022a; Radcliffe, 2022; Chapman, 2023), Brazilian journal Terra Brasilis has brought together scholars from various countries and disciplinary backgrounds to produce a thematic issue on ‘Portuguese Geography, the Tropics and Late Colonialism’ (Oliveira and Sarmento, 2022). Contributions offer a close analysis of figures such as F. X. da Silva Teles and Orlando Ribeiro (along with the Lisbon Geographical Society and the so-called ‘Lisbon School of Geography’) (Pimenta, 2022; Agoas, 2022); Francisco Tenreiro and fieldwork missions (Oliveira, 2022); Soeiro de Brito and reports to the Overseas Research Board (Sarmento, 2022b); South African geographer David L. Niddrie (Cruz, 2022), and the influential role played by French geographer Pierre Gourou in Portuguese tropical geography (Clayton, 2022), and various important cartographic outcomes (Moreira, 2022).…”

“…All in all, the dossier expresses a comprehensive effort to revisit Portuguese geography from the mid-20th century, aiming at understanding ‘the role of geographic discourse [namely, that of tropical geography] in colonial context’ (Oliveira and Sarmento, 2022: 1). Attention is paid also to subaltern voices and actors forging international networks bringing together independence political leaders and giving voice (and geographical expression) to their claims (Ferretti, 2022b).…”