A arqueologia além das fronteiras: histórias da colaboração científica entre Brasil e Estados Unidos na segunda metade do século XX

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the transnational scientific collaboration between Brazil and the United tates. The object is the analysis of the National Program of Archaeological Research (PRONAPA), carried out during the second half of the twentieth century. Th research aims to understand the formation, implementation, and trajectory of the PRONAPA in Brazil and, more specifically, in the state of Bahia. The study emphasizes the institutional, political, epistemic, and ethical negotiations that shaped the field of Brazilian archaeology during the military dictatorship and the Cold War. It seeks to offer a more complex interpretation of PRONAPA by highlighting the negotiations between Brazilian and American agents in its establishment. The analysis is based on extensive and previously unpublished documentation, including personal archives of key researchers, institutional reports, correspondence, and field records.Among the specific objectives are examining the circulation of methods and ideas between the two countries; reconstructing the individual and collective trajectories of the main actors (notably Betty Meggers, Clifford Evans, and Valentin Calderón); and understanding the regional particularities of PRONAPA’s implementation, with special attention to the role of the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) and Calderón’s activities in the Bahian context. The findings indicate that PRONAPA emerged from a complex network of negotiations involving institutions, funding agencies, and professionals outside the traditional academic centers of archaeological training in Brazil. The program contributed to the professionalization of the field and enabled the creation of regional collections and laboratories. The dissertation also underscores the program’s limitations and contradictions, highlighting internal disputes within the field, political and institutional ambiguities, and the creativity of Brazilian agents in navigating external pressures and opportunities. This research contributes to the broader scholarship on science under authoritarian regimes by drawing attention to archaeology as a field still underexplored from this perspective. Ultimately, it proposes a more nuanced understanding of the history of archaeology in Brazil by integrating the political, social, and institutional dimensions of scientific practice and recognizing the lasting impact of transnational collaborations in the consolidation of archaeology as an autonomous scientific discipline in the country.