| Name: | Description: | Size: | Format: | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.94 MB | Adobe PDF |
Abstract(s)
Ao intitularmos esta tese de doutoramento Cafres e Cafraria. A construção de categorias classificatórias dos africanos na documentação portuguesa (Séculos XVI e XVII), procuramos analisar os modos como determinada extensão da terra africana foi percepcionada, representada e classificada do ponto de vista geográfico e antropológico, a partir de concepções e olhares exteriores.
Reunimos um corpus documental constituído por uma amostragem significativa de fontes de diferentes tipologias, as quais materializam as concepções de uma época que assistiu à dilatação do conhecimento do mundo.
As escritas produzidas no âmbito dos contactos directos com a diversidade geográfica e humana, ou as que decorreram da recolha de informações orais, leituras, transcrições e compilações, num âmbito de relações indirectas com o objecto descrito, vieram a construir sentidos e imagens mentais assentes em estereótipos, categorias e concepções herdadas de diversas temporalidades. Essas imagens circularam, foram apropriadas e geraram outras imagens e estereótipos, que se replicaram e cristalizaram naquilo que
constitui um amplo “arquivo” ocidental de representações sobre povos e territórios africanos.
Representações são imagens que tornam presentes objetos ausentes ou memórias, implicando mecanismos discursivos que conferem sentido ao que se afigura exterior, estranho e diverso. É nosso objectivo evidenciar os modos de transmissão dos estereótipos que sublinharam as diferenças ou procuraram semelhanças relativamente aos contextos dos sujeitos produtores dos discursos. Também procuramos compreender alguns momentos da dialéctica do encontro entre portugueses e comunidades do sudeste
africano, atendendo aos níveis de evidência sobre as percepções locais do homem “branco”.
Com esta dissertação desejamos contribuir para o conhecimento dos conceitos “cafre” e “Cafraria”, desde o momento em que se fez a transferência do vocábulo árabe kāfir (início do séc. XVI), até que se consumou a sua generalização nos discursos portugueses, e outros povos europeus se apropriam dos seus sentidos (1652), reinventando-os noutros contextos históricos de interacção cultural.
This Ph.D. thesis is titled "Cafres" and "Cafraria". The construction of categories of classification of Africans in Portuguese documentation (16th and 17th centuries). With this research project we seek to analyze the ways in which a certain extent of African land was perceived, represented and classified from a geographical and anthropological point of view, on the basis of external conceptions and perspectives. We have assembled a documentary corpus composed of a significant sample of sources of different types, which materializes the conceptions of a time that has seen the expansion of the knowledge of the world. The writings produced in the context of direct contacts with geographical and human diversity, or those resulting from the collection of oral information, readings, transcripts and compilations, in a context of indirect relations with the object described, came to construct meanings and mental images based on stereotypes, categories and concepts inherited from different temporalities. These images have circulated, been appropriated and generated other images and stereotypes, which replicated and crystallized in what constitutes a vast Western archive of representations on African peoples and territories. The representations are images that present absent objects or memories, involving discursive mechanisms that make sense of what seems to be external, strange and diverse. Our goal is to highlight the modes of transmission of stereotypes that underline differences or seek similarities in the contexts of the subjects who produce the discourses. We also sought to understand some moments of the dialectics of the meeting between Portuguese and Southeast African communities, taking into account the levels of evidence about the local perceptions of white men. With this thesis, we want to contribute to the knowledge of the concepts of "cafre" and "Cafraria",from the moment when the Arabic word kāfir was transferred (beginning of the sixteenth century), until its generalization in Portuguese discourses, and other European peoples appropriate their meaning (1652), reinventing them in other historical contexts of cultural interaction.
This Ph.D. thesis is titled "Cafres" and "Cafraria". The construction of categories of classification of Africans in Portuguese documentation (16th and 17th centuries). With this research project we seek to analyze the ways in which a certain extent of African land was perceived, represented and classified from a geographical and anthropological point of view, on the basis of external conceptions and perspectives. We have assembled a documentary corpus composed of a significant sample of sources of different types, which materializes the conceptions of a time that has seen the expansion of the knowledge of the world. The writings produced in the context of direct contacts with geographical and human diversity, or those resulting from the collection of oral information, readings, transcripts and compilations, in a context of indirect relations with the object described, came to construct meanings and mental images based on stereotypes, categories and concepts inherited from different temporalities. These images have circulated, been appropriated and generated other images and stereotypes, which replicated and crystallized in what constitutes a vast Western archive of representations on African peoples and territories. The representations are images that present absent objects or memories, involving discursive mechanisms that make sense of what seems to be external, strange and diverse. Our goal is to highlight the modes of transmission of stereotypes that underline differences or seek similarities in the contexts of the subjects who produce the discourses. We also sought to understand some moments of the dialectics of the meeting between Portuguese and Southeast African communities, taking into account the levels of evidence about the local perceptions of white men. With this thesis, we want to contribute to the knowledge of the concepts of "cafre" and "Cafraria",from the moment when the Arabic word kāfir was transferred (beginning of the sixteenth century), until its generalization in Portuguese discourses, and other European peoples appropriate their meaning (1652), reinventing them in other historical contexts of cultural interaction.