Prof. Dr. Bruno Bontempi Júnior
Email: bontempi@usp.br
Affiliation: Department of Philosophy of Education and Sciences of Education, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
Research Interests: transnational history, history of education, historiography, intellectual history
The general theme of this special issue is transnational historiography, an approach that investigates the encounters, exchanges, and networks formed between, beyond, above, below, or at the intersection of national borders. This approach does not presuppose that cross-border circulations constitute mutualistic relationships between partners on equal footing; rather, it highlights the capillaries of power and investigates the asymmetries, resistances, and appropriations generated across distinct sociocultural contexts.
Science and technology are particularly well-suited to transnational analysis, as they are produced, circulated, and institutionalized through networks that frequently transcend the territorial and analytical boundaries of the nation-state. Similarly, the national education systems worldwide were formed through the cross-border transfer, exchange, and adaptation of knowledge, practices, and artifacts. Thus, throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, knowledge underwent continuous transformations—accelerated and driven by the intense mobility of individuals as well as the activities of institutions, corporations, philanthropic foundations, and international organizations. Consequently, the networks and webs that fostered and sustained these interconnections can be understood as historical formations continuously reconfigured by the actors, institutions, and material conditions involved. This analytical shift requires attention to the circumstances under which materialities cross—or fail to cross—borders.
We invite authors to examine the movement of knowledge as a social achievement—historically situated, politically conditioned, and dependent on actors, concrete objects, institutions, documents, financial resources, mediation practices, and so forth. Thus, the travels, missions, congresses, exchange programs, cooperation initiatives, and research and educational institutions of the 19th and 20th centuries become key areas of study. The analytical challenge lies in replacing models that assume unidirectional flows—from producing centers to receiving peripheries—with inquiries that reveal unique itineraries and multidirectional movements, as well as processes of negotiation, contestation, prohibition, partial appropriation, and mutual transformation.
