Ceara in a straight line: Space and time in the production of the modern Brazilian nation

Authors

  • Ana Isabel Ribeiro Parente Cortez Reis Professora Adjunto da Universidade regional do Cariri - URCA

Abstract

This article discusses the attempt to produce a modern state based on the construction of straight roads or on a networking of the space in question, Ceará’s territory, with the modern time of so-called civilized nations in the late 19th and early 20th century. The article reflects on the discussions undertaken in documents produced by public authorities, such as the reports of the president of the province of Ceará, where one can see the efforts made to modernize the province, but also reports of engineers, newspaper stories that circulated in that province and the memoirs of Rodolfo Theófilo, a well-known intellectual of Ceará. This study emphasizes the path on which the Baturité Railroad was later built, also because the analysis of the railroad project, as an instrument for Ceará’s modernization (or the invention of Ceará in a straight line), is central to this reflection. Thus, this work shows how the public administration and other subjects (including engineers and intellectuals) recommended a project for the modernization of the territory of the province with the construction of roads and railways.

Keywords: history, modernization, space, time, railroad.

Author Biography

Ana Isabel Ribeiro Parente Cortez Reis, Professora Adjunto da Universidade regional do Cariri - URCA

Ana Isabel Ribeiro Parente Cortez

 

Atualmente, é Professora Adjunto no Departamento de História da Universidade Regional do Cariri - URCA e leciona no Curso de Graduação em História da URCA e no Mestrado Profissional em Ensino de História - PROFHISTÓRIA. É Doutora em História, com área de concentração em História Social, pela Universidade Federal do Ceará, tendo defendido a Tese O Espaço a serviço do Tempo: a Estrada de Ferro de Baturité e a invenção do Ceará. Na pesquisa, tem enfoque no campo de História Social com estudos sobre as relações historicamente estabelecidas entre natureza e cultura, sobretudo no que concerne à expansão ferroviária no Ceará.

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Published

2016-06-30

Issue

Vol. 20 No. 2 (2016): May/August

Section

Articles

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