From the Geography of “Man-land Relationship” to Environmental Geography: a History (and a “Prehistory”) of the (Socio)environmental Studies at the PPGG/UFRJ

Abstract

It is notorious the relevance that the graduate programme in geography of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (PPGG/UFRJ) has had on the national scene, in the fifty years since its creation in 1972. At first glance, a prominent role of the PPGG/UFRJ can be seen especially in the sub-areas of geomorphology, urban geography and regional studies on the Amazon. A closer look will reveal, however, that, in addition to that, a distinctive mark of UFRJ’s geography, since the foundation of the Centro de Pesquisas de Geografia do Brasil (CPGB), three decades before the creation of the PPGG itself, has always been the strong presence of a research style that does not endorse the gap between human geography and physical geography. Indeed, between the ‘prehistory’ of the programme in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s – the time of classical regional studies about the ‘man-land relationship’ – and the recent role regarding the building of a so called ‘environmental geography,’ the PPGG/UFRJ never failed to show, as one of its most rooted traditions, the interest about what we could term ‘hybrid epistemic objects,’ and the cultivation of a certain ‘epistemic transversality.’ Despite the differences between the many individuals involved in this history over the generations (due to different political and scientific positions, idiosyncrasies, and differences in prestige) and despite the discontinuities and the ups and downs, the survival and updating of this tradition – undervalued
and even rejected by many geographers in the last four decades – is remarkable; more than that, it can be regarded as a veritable asset nowadays.