14. Aziz Nacib Ab’Saber and the Professionalisation of Research in Geomorphology in Brazilian Geography Courses

The history of the discipline of geography in Brazil and its professionalisation is told as one of an exclusive products, inserted into the country’s project of modernisation, which would be achieved only with the knowledge and integration of the Brazilian territory. Aziz Nacib Ab’Sáber, along with João José Bigarella, Fernando Flávio Marques de Almeida and Maria Regina Mousinho de Meis, are leaders when it comes to the formation of geomorphology in Brazil as a scientific field of research—in geography and geosciences in their entirety, and with strong impacts on other disciplinary fields. In general, and independently of their technical-scientific options, it can be said that, with greater or lesser influence, their understanding of geomorphology was united by a cross-cutting axis: Lester King’s Theory of Pediplanation. Unlike the masters alluded to above, Aziz Ab’Sáber has remained faithful to its paradigmatic principle—that is, that life is the result of a balance between is to siasis database and paleoclimatic variations. This lies within a polycyclic vision, where the glacial phases would lead to the production of pediplains and their correlative deposits, while in tropicality, the carving phase of thalwegs would predominate with the consequent dismantling of the surfaces. In 1956, the 8th International Conference of the IGU Congress was held, and in this congress, Ab’Sáber was introduced to Jean Tricart’s thoughts and to Jean Dresch, who during their field visits drew his attention to the role of stone lines as indicators of geomorphological processes. The importance of stone lines for geomorphological studies, associated with the notion of physiology of the Otto Karl Siegfried Passarge landscape, marked not only Ab’Sáber’s own reinvention in terms of his conception of geomorphology, but also enabled him to be a leader in the renewal of Brazilian geomorphology from the referential perspective and using the very epistemological structure of Brazilian geographical science.