A "Dona da Floresta": uma paisagem intelectual de Clara Pandolfo e sua obra sobre a Amazônia (1955-1990)

Abstract

This thesis is about the intellectual and public trajectory of the first chemist in the Northern Region and a public servant of SPVEA/Sudam – Dr. Clara Pandolfo (1912-2009). Her involvement in these organizations spans a period of 36 years. The main objective is to present her intellectual landscape divided into three phases chronologically from 1954 to 1990. Drawing upon Zygmunt Bauman's ideas about modern intellectuals, the representations and actions of the scientist from Pará regarding the Amazonian nature reveal her reasoning and practices on how to achieve the modernization of the region and also allow us to understand her as an intellectual legislator. By following her saga in advocating for the development of the Amazon, her greatest attention and insistence were directed towards the timber industry. In this sense, this investigation only encompasses her ideas and actions aimed at realizing her major legislative intellectual project, in which the region would become the world's timber barn; however, it also indicates her knowledge of minerals and oilseeds at certain points. This research is not a strict biographical study, much less about the psychological aspects of the protagonist, although biographical elements are present because Intellectual History often requires them. Biographical aspects were significant in understanding how a female scientist from the Amazon acted in almost three decades within two central organizations that projected regional development and produced a substantial amount of texts, studies, research, and projects, while also actively participating in the national debate on the issue of Amazonian development across various governments. It is essential to highlight the concern of this thesis in historicizing Clara Pandolfo's production and actions. To achieve this, the ruptures in her legislative project for the modernization of the Amazon were unveiled, as well as the continuities. This made it possible to highlight the diachronic and synchronic relationship present in her depictions of nature, and, therefore, the temporal boundaries are constituted by the sources of her authorship. Her grand project to organize the Amazonian nature was embedded in the development discourse of the military dictatorship but presented itself as an alternative and even a divergence from the predominant agricultural projects of that period. In summary, the culmination of her intellectual project is synthesized in this research as follows: Profitable Forests complemented by a Forestry Policy for the Amazon. Furthermore, this investigation fits into Intellectual History, while also engaging with Environmental History and Women's History.