scholarly journals “Civilizing” the Amazon: Amerindians and the Portuguese Crown’s Struggle for Sovereignty, 1650-1777

2008 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 226-253
Author(s):  
Helena Nunes Duarte

Abstract This article examines Portuguese colonization techniques in northern Brazil and subsequent changes during the regime of the Marquis of Pombal (1750-1777), which centred on restructuring defence, settlement, and the role of natives in the colonies. Focusing on the 1758 Indian Directorate, a collection of laws on native policy, the article examines how, despite the Enlightenment humanitarian trappings of the reform, it had a far more complex purpose than merely converting Indians into loyal subjects of the Portuguese crown. The legislation was just one part of a multi-faceted attempt to establish the crown’s sovereignty in the Amazon, which included taking power from the Jesuits, subjugating the natives, defining imperial territory, and asserting economic independence.

2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 540-563
Author(s):  
Anne Pollok

AbstractThis paper considers Mendelssohn’s attempt at a definition of Enlightenment in terms of Bildung, comprising the theoretical element of the enlightenment of reason with the practical requirements of culture. To avoid a possible dialectics of enlightenment, where the very methods one uses to enlighten harbour the seeds of new blindness, Mendelssohn advocates considering the lively connections between people, the role of traditions and personal relations in the formation of an individual self, and the connections we should have to our past, present, and future. Thus, his essay from 1784 can be read as an apt defence of a dialogical notion of freedom within the Enlightenment era.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 132-135
Author(s):  
Nur Sholeh Hidayat ◽  
◽  
Eddy Priyanto

This research studies the role of human capital investment through the mechanism of improving education and health services in efforts to alleviate poverty and increase economic independence with dignity in the form of improving the performance of Indonesia's human resources which is reflected in Indonesia's economic growth. This study uses secondary data from world banks and processed regression using the moving average autoregression method. We find that investment in education and investment in health is positively related to economic growth. And, poverty is negatively related to economic growth. This indicates that human capital investment in Indonesia is able to promote economic growth and alleviate poverty in Indonesia.


2020 ◽  
Vol 65 ◽  
pp. 115-128
Author(s):  
Vladimir A. Kudryavtsev ◽  
Alexandra I. Vakulinskaya

This article deals with the history of Russian philosophers ‘acquaintance with the ideas of O. Spengler, set forth in his work “The Decline of the West”. The authors point out that the initial orientation of Russian thought towards Historiosophy, problems of history and ontology became the key factor of Spengler’s popularity in Russia. The article considers and analyzes critical and methodological approaches to the theory of cultural and historical types by O. Spengler and N. Ya. Danilevsky within the framework of Russian philosophical thought. The authors pay attention to the ideological influence of the United States as the country which adheres to the ideas of the Enlightenment, as well as to German thinkers, who visited this country in the early twentieth century. It is concluded that the global scenario of the human civilization development, that used to be the mainstream of its formation before the events of the beginning of this year, is unsuitable and untenable. The authors insist on the important role of the theory of cultural and historical types supported and developed by Russian emigration representatives, and focus on the importance of the religious factor in the process of cultural revival.


2010 ◽  
Vol 82 (2) ◽  
pp. 439-449 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dilce F. Rossetti

The traditional view that the Brazilian Amazonia is located in a tectonically stable area since the Cretaceous is changing in front of the increasing documentation of fault reactivations even during the Holocene. How the sedimentary record has responded to these events is an issue that remains to be approached with basis on field data. This work focuses on the stratigraphic correlation of late Quaternary deposits from eastern Marajó Island, with the goal of demonstrating the role of fault reactivation on the origin and preservation of these deposits. Despite the location in a stable platform of a continental passive margin, three studied stratigraphic units display significant vertical offsets that define two depocenters that are better explained through tectonic displacements. This interpretation is reinforced by several morphostructural features related to faults that occur between the studied drills. Without the influence of tectonics, sediment preservation in this characteristically low-lying terrain would have been negligible. The results of the present work motivate to look for other tectonically-influenced areas in Amazonia, which similarly might have acted as sites for sediment accommodation during the late Quaternary. These sedimentary records have great potential to be the source of valuable information for reconstructing Quaternary geological events in Northern Brazil.


Author(s):  
Samira Nuhanovic-Ribic ◽  
Ermanno C. Tortia ◽  
Vladislav Valentinov

Over the last decades, agricultural co-operatives grew substantially in most developed and developing countries, often reaching dominant market positions. We inquire into the economic mechanism behind this growth, by elaborating on the relation between co-operative identity and co-operative benefits. We highlight the ability of agricultural co-operatives to co-ordinate large-scale production, to monitor work contributions and product quality, and to ensure economic independence of farmer members. Following the two principal streams in the economic literature, we distinguish between the conceptions of agricultural co-operatives as units of vertical integration and as firms characterized by common governance of collective entrepreneurial action and ability to reduce transaction costs and economic risk. We describe the financial and governance limitations of agricultural co-operatives while taking account of new co-operative models presenting institutional tools introduced to overcome these limitations. We conclude by suggesting directions for enhancing the role of co-operatives in agricultural and rural development.


2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-225
Author(s):  
Marthe Kretzschmar

Knowledge of the materiality of stone during the Enlightenment expanded following the exploration of mineralogical structure, to alter ideas about taxonomy and challenge the role of rocks in the history of the earth. Close studies of the material of marble sculpture generated expertise on grain size, surface varieties and stone deposits. This mode of reception became intertwined with contemporary controversies about the age of the earth. This article focuses on both French sculpture and geological discourses of the eighteenth century to reveal an international and interdisciplinary network centring on protagonists such as Denis Diderot, Paul-Henri Thiry d’Holbach and Étienne-Maurice Falconet; through these figures, debates can be connected concerning both geology and art theory. Within these contexts, the article discusses the translation processes between these artistic and geological interests.


Author(s):  
Margaret C. Jacob

This chapter traces the origins of the Enlightenment in France. The Enlightenment in France depended partially on foreign influences, generally coming from England and the Dutch Republic. That does not detract from the brilliance of its leading lights nor the courage of the denizens of its clandestine markets. All were eager to make a profit, to be sure, but they also wanted a different social and political order, a secular order with fewer churchmen, less censorship, more tolerance, and justice for the poor and oppressed. The chapter then studies the role of booksellers in revealing the nature of the Enlightenment, especially if they specialized in the materialist and pornographic and had the misfortune to be imprisoned in the Bastille for their illegal trade. The genre of materialist works must be broadly defined to include the rabidly anticlerical and anti-Catholic.


2021 ◽  
pp. 113-132
Author(s):  
Charles Devellennes

This chapter provides a reflection on the new social contract, taking Diderot as dialectician of change, and offer ways to think about the future of the tradition. It shows that such a model is possible. A new social contract will take into account the need for liberty, democracy and economic justice. Most working class people have finished high school and been awarded a Baccalauréat, and many are home-owners of one of the millions of bungalows built throughout peripheral France. Yet their ability to secure economic independence, a promise of the Enlightenment, has not materialized. Many are worse off than their parents, and those without family assistance are extremely exposed to the ebb and flow of macro-economic trends such as global slowdown and recession. A social contract of the future has to address these needs that were posited as the sine qua non condition for social advancement more than two centuries ago. The revolt of the gilets jaunes against rent-seeking economic actors, such as landlords, motorway management companies, insurance and mortgage companies, and utilities, is testament to the economic plight that needs redressing. Although the gilets jaunes have failed to organize themselves politically in the traditional sense, they have provided one of the strongest political challenges to the very existence of the French state as it currently stands. It is this new form of politics, which does not go through political parties but demands social and economic justice directly, that is at the centre of the new social contract they demand.


2012 ◽  
Vol 74 (4) ◽  
pp. 607-629 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth W. Grant

AbstractLocke stresses the power of custom in shaping opinion and behavior, though this aspect of his thought has been underappreciated. Recognizing its importance raises critical issues, particularly the relation between custom and reason and the role of authoritative custom in supporting political and social power. Locke explains in detail the various psychological and sociological mechanisms by which the power of custom is manifested; but he nonetheless consistently and emphatically rejects its authority. Instead, Locke is a champion of the authority of reason. Because custom is powerful, but reason is authoritative, Locke attempts to enlist the power of custom in the service of reason and of reasonable politics, and because custom is powerful and its impact unavoidable, individual intellectual independence cannot mean being without cultural prejudices. At best, it means the ability to gain some critical distance from them. These observations place Locke's relation to the Enlightenment in a new perspective.


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