Name: LIVIA SCHEINER COSTA
Type: PhD thesis
Publication date: 28/12/2020
Advisor:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| PATRÍCIA MARIA DA SILVA MERLO | Advisor * |
Examining board:
| Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| PATRÍCIA MARIA DA SILVA MERLO | Advisor * |
| SEBASTIÃO PIMENTEL FRANCO | Internal Examiner * |
| UEBER JOSÉ DE OLIVEIRA | Internal Examiner * |
Summary: This work seeks to analyze personal ties as a specific dimension of the construction of power networks in the region known as the Centre-South of the Portuguese America, between the second half of the 18th century and the first twenty years of the 19th century. To this end, we took as object of study, the personal and political trajectories of Paulo Fernandes Viana, the first police intendant of Rio de Janeiro, and his cousin, Francisco Alberto Rubim, governor of the Captaincy of Espírito Santo between 1812 and 1819. Through these characters we demonstrate how family bonds, as well as nobility strategies related to other personal relationships, participated in the movement of certain sectors of political elites from the Center-South region, in the midst of government initiatives to make the new Portuguese-Brazilian Empire viable. As for the methodology, we use trajectory studies combined with prosopography, that is, the construction of collective biographies. We illustrate strategies for social mobility and network reproduction based on specific cases, evaluating variables such as consanguinity and ritual kinship, seen throughout generations, and the informal relationships established outside the family axis, such as friendship and participation in events of common interest. Through a wide typology of sources, including parish records, political correspondence, historical cartography and documents on the attribution of patents, titles and degrees of nautical (Rubim) and legal (Viana) training, we have designed the multiple connections and forms of relationship, checking paths and indicators of strategies, in the midst of marriage options and career choices. The guiding principle was, therefore, the relative stability of ties, given the unpredictability of social forces.
Keywords: Captaincy of Espírito Santo, Power networks, Personal trajectories, Elite studies, Portuguese-Brazilian Empire.
