Changing the world from Latin America: Milton Santos between transnational networking and multilingual worldings

Abstract

On the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Brazilian radical geographer Milton Santos (1926–2001), we publish here for the first time the text of a guest lecture that he gave at the Fourth Meeting of Latin American Geographers (EGAL) in Mérida, Venezuela, in 1993. Unusually, this lecture was given by Santos in Spanish before a multilingual Latin American audience. It was recorded in audio-cassette format, and we transcribe it here thanks to the kindness of the archivists of the São Paulo Institute of Brazilian Studies (IEB). We present below an English translation of the resulting text, with the original Spanish and a Portuguese translation available as Supplementary Materials. After Santos’ lecture, we add three commentaries by four authors from different scholarly generations and linguistic backgrounds, all committed to the translation and wider circulation of Santos’ work. Their commentaries discuss themes addressed directly or indirectly in Santos’ speech, such as Latin American radicalism, translation, epistemological perspectives and the wider legacies of Santos’ thought. This collection, in the first commentary, also draws on an interview with Venezuelan geographer Delfina Trinca Fighera, who was Santos’ host in Mérida for the 1993 EGAL conference.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Journal of Historical Geography, 2026 · DOI ↗