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Historical geographies of critical development

This research addresses the international circulation of critical and radical geographies between Europe and Latin America; the scholars and networks I am studying gave a little-known but important contribution to the field of critical development studies. My main argument is that critical geographers from Latin America elaborated very influential ideas on geographies of poverty, underdevelopment and de-colonisation from the 1930s to the 1980s. Therefore, these “Southern” scholars were not mere receptors of “Northern” ideas, but exercised significant influence on European and North American colleagues. My first case are the transnational networks of three Brazilian geographers exiled after the establishment of 1964 military dictatorship, Milton Santos (1926-2001), Josué De Castro (1908-1973) and Manuel Correia de Andrade (1922-2007), whose international work in the construction of critical geographies of development is worth to be rediscovered through a systematic survey of their archives. The first step of this research is a sojourn at the Institute for Brazilian Studies (IEB) in São Paulo, where a great part of Santos’s and Andrade’s archives survive. Targeting publication in world-leading journals, this project aims at contributing to international studies on critical development, Latin American Studies, radical and critical geographies and current debates on postcolonialism, decoloniality, postmodernity and critical modernities. 

(L-R) UCD Winners, Dr Walsh, Dr Ni Shuilleabhain, with President Daly, Dr Ferretti and Dr Hollis