Banca de DEFESA: VICTOR RAFAEL LIMEIRA DA SILVA

Uma banca de DEFESA de DOUTORADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
STUDENT : VICTOR RAFAEL LIMEIRA DA SILVA
DATE: 17/02/2022
TIME: 14:00
LOCAL: https://conferenciaweb.rnp.br/events/defesa-de-doutorado-de-victor-rafael-limeira-da-silva
TITLE:

A NATURALIST AMONGST AMAZONIAN INDIGENOUS PEOPLES:
A. R. WALLACE’S EARLY ETHNOGRAPHIC PRACTICES IN THE EMERGING BRITISH ANTHROPOLOGY

KEY WORDS:

Wallace, Amazon, Ethnography, Victorian Anthropology

PAGES: 337
BIG AREA: Ciências Humanas
AREA: História
SUBÁREA: História das Ciências
SUMMARY:

The research which resulted in this thesis consisted of three main steps: 1) a combined minute
study of the secondary literature on A. R. Wallace’s scientific life and the following historical
topics of study: Victorian ethnography, ethnology and anthropology; general nineteenthcentury natural history and “race science”; evolutionism; travel writing; science and imperial
globalisation; eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Luso-Brazilian, Noth-American, and
Continental European studies of Brazilian Indigenous peoples; Anglo-Brazilian relations; and
history of the Amazon; 2) a combined analysis of primary sources concerning both Wallace’s
life and science and the British scientific studies and cultural representations of human
diversity between the 1840s and 1860s, collected in archives and libraries of various
institutions in England and in online database; 3) a third combined perusal of the results of the
two initial steps, merging them into the elaboration of the six article-like chapters constituting
the monograph. In this thesis, I argue that ethnographic observational practices and studies of
human diversity were two of the forefronts on Wallace’s scientific vocation, and that being
enduringly interested in understanding the human species, he dedicated himself to contribute
significantly to the development of ethnology and anthropology, solidifying a lasting
anthropological legacy in Britain and elsewhere. Being this monograph a combination of
thematic scientific biography and disciplinary history, the reader will follow the construction
of Wallace’s social-scientific ideas about human diversity and vocational profile as a field
observer while undertaking ethnographic observational practices amongst Welsh folk and
extra-European Indigenous peoples, notably of the Amazon, between the 1840s and 1850s. In
this process, the reader will also have the opportunity to take a look at the development of
British ethnology and anthropology in a big picture. Wallace’s observational experiences and
studies will be continually merged into and contrasted against the milieu of significant
researchers of human diversity of his time, either those he read, interacted/shared ideas with
or diverged. Sequentially, the reader will be taken through an analysis of the first responses to
Wallace’s Amazonian ethnographic work and efforts to be seen as a sophisticated field
observer of human diversity. Finally, I will present to the reader how crucial Wallace’s early
ethnographic experiences were to the refinement of the observational theoretical potential of
his later investigations in Asia, as well as to the establishment of his authority in learned
circles of the study of humankind. The reader will therefore understand how Wallace was able
to position himself, in the condition of formally uneducated naturalist, amongst reputed
scholars struggling for the control and scientific consolidation of the “science of man”.
Building upon previous studies of Victorian anthropology, this thesis provides a new
illustration of the gradual development of anthropological thought and practices of
observation in the 1800s through the initial trajectory of an eminent self-taught ethnographer
and anthropologist

BANKING MEMBERS:
Presidente - 2086934 - JUAN MANUEL SANCHEZ ARTEAGA
Interno - 306961 - LUIZ CARLOS SOARES
Interno - 285676 - OLIVAL FREIRE JUNIOR
Externo à Instituição - EFRAM SERA-SHRIAR
Externo à Instituição - MAURIZIO ESPOSITO - UFABC