A place of their own: intellectuals, exiles & the production of knowledge through translation

This article aims to explore the uses of translation in knowledge production and dissemination by Portuguese-language exiles in 19th-century Paris. The reflection focuses on two key figures: Caetano Lopes de Moura (Bahia, 1780-Paris, 1860), a Brazilian physician who translated historical sources on Brazil available in France, as well as medical and geography books; and the Viscount of Santarém (Lisbon, 1791- Paris, 1856), who rendered works of Portuguese history, geography and cartography and Lusophone Africa into his native language. Arguably, these translations produced by very different intellectuals created new forms of scholarship in exile. On the one hand, they changed the landscape of Portuguese scientific language, importing foreign concepts and, consequently, fostering estrangement. On the other, the collaborative work around historical and geography source texts to be translated into Portuguese gave occasion to the formation of a network of displaced intellectuals, thus, creating new spaces of translation, knowledge-making and collaboration.