Geographic obsessions

travel, conflict and knowledge in the Geographical Society of Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

The role of geographical societies in shaping and legitimising knowledge of “unknown regions” (according to Western perspective) hasn’t been sufficiently studied in the field of History of Science. This article aims to contribute in this sense and will examine the representations and the practices of exploration developed at the Geographical Society of Rio de Janeiro (SGRJ) in the late nineteenth century, with special emphasis on the Xingu River controversy involving the German traveller Karl von den Steinen and the SGRJ journal editor, Francisco Antonio Pimenta Bueno.