2. Antecedents: French Geography in Brazil

This chapter focuses on French geography starting from its tendencies and approaches. It identifies the diffusion of its lines of research through the world and mainly in Brazil, which permits comparative analyses to be established and the identification of differences in the political and cultural contexts of France and Brazil, in the attempt to clarify some approaches regarded as ambiguous. French geography sought to create centers of formation and research, based on the work of a few geographers, the preferential option being Lablachean geography, and using its institutionalization to its own advantage. These centers, at the same time that they were able to create the image of the world in France and of France in the world, became bibliographical references with an enormous capacity for publication and cultural diffusion, often being concerned with explaining a world which was quickly being transformed.