This article discusses the relationship between state ideas and practices based on a case study of the Fundação Brasil Central (FBC), an agency created by the Estado Novo regime in 1943 and whose activities extended until 1967. The hypothesis is that Brazilian social thought should be analyzed as a cultural repertoire that produces effects on social life and the state. The article thus analyzes material from the FBC archives and travel records, geopolitical treatises, and other text sources published from the First Republic through the initial years of the Vargas Era. The aim is to show how narratives on Central Brazil shaped the language and practice of public administration.
Brazilian social thought; Fundação Brasil Central; sociology of culture; Estado Novo