From the tropical imagination to the politics. The answer of brazilian geography to the story of this curse

Abstract

Society, territory and nature are connected in many concrete situations. These, as components of social imagination, make visible and interpretable the symbolism that exists between mankind and it’s environment, showing the heuristic possibilities of world perception that belongs to each period and each place. Taking this discussion as a starting point, this article recovers the social representation of Brazilian tropical nature since the XVI century and also the debates that put in opposite fields tropical potentialities and tropical problems. The role of national geography, dedicated to demonstrate the extension, the potentialities and the qualities of the people and the nature to the progress, was essential to create knowledge about the territory and performed an effort to deny the imagination of tropical paradise predestined to laziness and incapacity.