The debate on environment and race in 1870 intellectual generation: the construction of a civilization project for Brazil

Abstract

Since 1850, the material and symbolic bases of the Brazilian monarchy came to be destabilized. At the heart of this period of crises and transformations, a number of groups and social actors living this period from different perspectives, began to gestate - directly and indirectly, consciously and unconsciously, through the intersection of practices and discourses - a new project of country, a new project of society: a project of "Civilization " inspired by the reality that emerged in the Old World. In this context, the 1870’ Brazilian intellectual generation assumed the mission to formulate analyzes and perspectives on the country with the ultimate goal of tracing the path that would constitute Brazil as a civilized country. In their analysis, they discovered the "problem" of racial miscegenation and the lack of national integration as obstacles to overcome, proposing a series of intervention projects.