Maria Graham e Marianne North: viagens, redes de sociabilidade e imperialismo britânico (Século XIX)

Abstract

In nineteenth-century England, marked by imperial expansion and the consolidation of scientific, museological, and artistic institutions, the space of travel became an important instrument for observation, the circulation of knowledge, and the mobilization of sociability networks. In this context, women who were involved not only in maritime journeys but also in the daily activity of writing, collecting botanical specimens, cataloguing them, and painting them stand out. Maria Graham (1785–1842) and Marianne North (1830–1890) were central figures in imperial England. Through a dialogue between the two travelers, this thesis aims to analyze how they mobilized material resources, gender strategies, and sociability networks to make their journeys possible, produce knowledge, and negotiate their insertion into traditionally male spaces, such as ships, scientific circles, and the cultural debates of the nineteenth century. Although there are comparative studies on women travelers, there is still no historiographical analysis that articulates, through the trajectories of Maria Graham and Marianne North, sociability networks, gender, and empire. To carry out this research, different types of sources were used: biographies, autobiographies, travel writings, letters to friends and family, and excerpts from English newspapers. Through this documentary corpus, the study seeks to move beyond a “romanticized” view of nineteenth-century women travelers’ trajectories and to understand them from a broader perspective, that is, to recognize that their travels and literary and artistic productions were not merely exceptional experiences or adventures, but practices sustained by material conditions involving sociability networks, letters of introduction, personal correspondence, social capital, and financial resources.