2026/06/30 by VITOR BATALHONE · 1 voice
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #History of Colonial Brazil #History of Medicine and Tropical Health #Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.22201/iih.24485004e.2026.72.78066
openalex publication_date 2026/06/30 · openalex created_date 2026/07/03 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/04
This article examines Euclides da Cunha's experience during the War of Canudos in order to reflect on how temporal and spatial dimensions of reality were historically constituted and correlated. The process by which time and space were merged recorded the spatial distance between the inhabitants of the hinterlands country and the coastal urban centers as temporal-historical gaps, thereby obscuring their actual cultural and political nature and re-signifying them as natural in origin because they were linked to the material characteristics of both the environment and of the dwellers' material culture. This phenomenon simultaneously configured those subjects both as the core of national identity and as a hindrance to the nation's sociocultural and political development. The spatial distances between small inland towns and the more complex urban centers along the coast created the possibility of experiencing temporal displacement in travel between them. By examining Euclides da Cunha's book Os sertões, this study argues that such experiences of space and time were translated into concrete sociocultural and economic effects that profoundly shaped the lives of Brazilians as they confronted national military forces and police corps at the dawn of twentieth century.