Making a Global Image of the World: Science, Cosmography and Navigation in Times of the First Circumnavigation of Earth, 1492-1522

The voyages of exploration and discovery during the period of European maritime expansion and the immense amount of information and artefacts they produced about our knowledge of the world have maintained a difficult, if not non-existent, relationship with the main historiographical lines of the history of early modern science. This article attempts to problematize this relationship based on a historical account that seeks to highlight the scientific and institutional mechanisms that made the Magellan-Elcano voyage, the first modern voyage, possible. The text argues that this voyage was the first modern voyage because it allowed the construction of a new scientific and cartographic image of the globe and contributed to our understanding of the world as a global world, altering the foundations on which modern European economic and geographic thought was based. In that sense, the voyage was something extraordinary, but not completely unexpected. It responded to a complex process of expansionary policy and technical development that dated back to the 15th century, which in 1519 was sufficiently articulated to carry out a great feat.

O TRABALHO DE CAMPO COMO EXPERIÊNCIA EDUCATIVA EM GEOGRAFIA

O presente artigo revisita o trabalho de campo em geografia discutindo questões pedagógicas que envolvem sua implementação na Educação Básica. Partindo-se de uma análise que relaciona o campo ao pensamento geográfico, discute os limites da tradição calcada na pressuposição da neutralidade e da objetividade da observação direta. Contrapõe essa tradição de base positivista às chamadas “epistemologias críticas” que consideram o campo como um “conhecimento situado” sobre processos, pessoas e lugares. Ao centralizar a discussão no caráter pedagógico do campo, o artigo problematiza a tensão existente entre “conhecimentos acadêmicos” e “conhecimentos escolares”, defendendo a necessidade de uma “transformação didática” da abordagem do campo no ensino regular a fim de transformá-lo numa experiência educativa em geografia capaz de engendrar processos mais amplos de educação geográfica. Palavras-Chave: trabalho de campo, ensino de geografia, papel pedagógico. FIELDWORK AS AN EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE IN THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF GEOGRAPHY Abstract: The article reviews fieldwork studies in geography by discussing pedagogical issues involving in the possibility of its implementation. It presents an analysis of the relation between the field and geographic thought, as well as a discussion of the limits of the tradition based on the presumption of neutrality and objectivity in direct observation. The paper opposes this tradition based on positivism to the so-called “critical epistemologies which consider the field as“situated knowledge” of processes, people, and places. By recognizing the importance of fieldwork in geographic practices, this article aims to be a contribution to the understanding of its pedagogical role, highlighting its ability to awaken interest in acquiring the geographic knowledge. Keywords: fieldwork, geography teaching, pedagogical role. LE TRAVAIL DE TERRAIN COMME EXPÉRIENCE ÉDUCATIVE DANS LA GÉOGRAPHIE Résumé: Cet article revisite le sujet du travail de terrain en géographie en discutant des aspects pédagogiques impliqués dans la possibilité de sa mise en œuvre, à des différents niveaux. En partant de l'analyse du rôle formatif du terrain dans la pensée géographique, il discute les limites de la tradition fondée sur l'hypothèse de la neutralité et de l'objectivité de l'observation directe. Il oppose cette tradition fondée sur le positivisme à ce qu'on appelle les “épistémologies critiques" qui considèrent le terrain comme une forme de connaissance située sur les processus, les personnes et les lieux. Toute en reconnaissant l'importance du travail de terrain dans les pratiques de la géographie, l'article se veut une contribution au rôle pédagogique propre du terrain, en mettant en évidence sa capacité à éveiller l'intérêt pour l'apprentissage et, en particulier, pour la connaissance géographique. Mots-Clé: travail de terrain, enseignement de la géographie, rôle pédagogique.

"Thoughts on Waters and Lands of Japan" by Nishikawa Joken (1648 – 1724)

The present publication is a translation of Nishikawa Joken’s (1648 – 1724) treatise Nihon Suido Ko:(“Thoughts on Waters and Lands of Japan”), with commentaries and a preface. The treatise was composed approximately in 1700 and published in Kyoto in the beginning of the 18th century. Nishikawa based his work on traditional East-Asian system of knowledge as well as on the European geographical data. This eclectic combination produced an original work, which one can hardly attribute as a reproduction of Western science, neither as Japanese traditional thought. The aim of the author was to describe the position of Japan within the world and to explain why this position was unique and advantageous. Although attempts to reconsider Japan’s inferior to China position were not uncommon during the Tokugawa age, Nishikawa’s originality lies in his way of argumentation. He uses the rhetoric of geographic determinism. It is due to a specific location and consequently the advantageous interaction of elements and branches that Japan is the home for luminous deities. The good nature and the devotedness to the right rituals of the Japanese people are also the product of the beneficial geomantic characteristics. The other topics the author considers are the attempt to confound the bias that Japan is small in size, the underneath meaning and the etymology of different names of Japan, the general structure of the world. Nihon Suido Ko: is a valuable source on the early development of Japanese national self-identification as well as on the history of Japanese geographic thought.

The everyday skills that get us by: Non-representational theories for a linealogy of quotidian cultures

In this article, I have three key aims. Firstly, I want to offer a particular definition and a bold defence of ‘non-representational theories’, indicating the importance of their anti-rationalist and anti-structuralist tendencies, and also pointing to their positive assertion of the primacy of practices or movement. Although a non-representational theoretical approach is closely associated today with contemporary geographic thought, I make a case here for an understanding of non-representational theories as a far broader cross-disciplinary project. Secondly, in the light of non-representational theories, I will be revisiting an old debate between culturalists and structuralists on matters of experience and representation. I consider, in a spirit of re-evaluation, Stuart Hall’s now classic essay on two paradigms in the development of cultural studies, as well as a selection of related interventions made by Hall. Thirdly, I will look to potential future directions for empirical research that is informed by a non-representational theoretical approach, in an area which I call ‘quotidian cultural studies’. My recommendations are for work that might explore, for example, acquired habits or ways of the hand in the uses of new media technologies (among other skills of tool use), and paths that are trodden along the ground on foot and through narrative or other media settings. A critical appropriation of Tim Ingold’s writings in anthropology leads me to describe such work as ‘linealogical’ investigations of everyday life.