Celebrating Milton Santos

Geography is not usually considered a controversial academic discipline. But the Brazilian scholar Milton Santos created a different school of thought that saw geography in its totality, invested with critical meaning and value. During a career that spanned over 50 years, Santos argued for a “New Geography” that encompassed more than the physical features of the earth, addressing the lives of the people who live there, as well as the distribution of space and resources that shapes their lives.

Born on May 3, 1926, in the Brotas de Macaúbas section of Bahia, Santos was the son of two elementary school teachers, and as a result was educated at home. Though higher education was not easily accessible to Santos, he was motivated to study by his father’s reminders that they had descended from slaves. Santos continued his pursuit of education by teaching high school geography in order to pay for his university tuition . In 1958 he earned a PhD in Geography from the University of Strasbourg, returning from France to teach at the Catholic University of Salvador and the Federal University of Bahia.

After decades of contributions to his field, Santos became the first Brazilian to win the Vautrin Lud International Geography Prize, known as the “Nobel Prize for Geography”—on this day in 1994. The prestigious accolade had never been awarded to a scholar who wrote in a language besides English. Never one to rest on his laurels, Santos’ quest for knowledge continued with his groundbreaking book The Nature of Space, which won Brazil’s Jabuti Award in 1997. That same year he also received the title of Professor Emeritus of the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences of the University of São Paulo.

Neither old age nor illness dampened his passion for the ideas he believed in. In July 2000, Santos and some of his students at the University of São Paulo published a pamphlet titled ‘The Active Role of Geography: A Manifesto,’ which they distributed at a national Brazilian geographers’ meeting. The provocative text sparked a passionate debate, just as Santos intended about the societal effects of a given geography.

Although his work has not yet been as widely translated and distributed as he would have liked, Santos’ legacy stands as a brilliant scholar who cared deeply about ways to create a better world for all of humanity.