Recognized as one of the main intellectuals of the 20th century in Brazil, Milton Santos built a career marked by scientific rigor, social commitment and a critical view of the inequalities produced by capitalism. Born on May 3, 1926, in Brotas de Macaúbas, in the outskirts of the state of Bahia, he turned Geography into a powerful tool to interpret the contemporary world, especially from the perspective of peripheral countries and their realities.

Milton Santos, who graduated in Law from the Federal University of Bahia, in 1948, found in Geography the intellectual field where his main reflections would be cultivated. He obtained a PhD degree in Geography in 1958, from the University of Strassburg, France, with a dissertation about downtown Salvador — a piece of work that revealed his interest for the urban dynamics and the contradictions found in Brazilian cities.

Before the military coup of 1964, Santos balanced his academic career with an intense public activity. He worked as a journalist for A Tarde newspaper, a university professor, director of the Official Press of Bahia and had important positions in the state’s economic planning. During this period his research was deeply connected to the local reality and attempted to explain the relations between territory, economy and society.

The democratic breakdown of 1964 was a turning point in his path. Persecuted by the military regime, Milton Santos was forced into exile and started a long-lasting international career. For more than one decade, he taught and did research at universities in France, the United States, Canada, Venezuela, Tanzania and other countries. This period of intense intellectual movement led him to expand Milton Santos’ views about the world and contributed to the consolidation of his theoretical production, especially about urbanization in the countries that were then labeled as underdeveloped.

It was during exile that he published fundamental works such as Les Villes du Tiers Monde and L’Espace Partagé, in which he presented the theory of two circuits of urban economy – the upper circuit and the lower circuit – a concept that would become central for critical urban studies. Based on these two analyses, Milton Santos started to defend a Geography committed to the understanding of structural inequalities and social transformation.

In 1977, as the dictatorship subsided, he returned to Brazil. Facing difficulties to be reintegrated to the university, he spent some time at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro,  and, in 1983, joined the University of São Paulo, where he would become a full professor of Human Geography. Even after his compulsory retirement, Milton Santos received the title of Professor Emeritus and remained active in writing, students’ advisory and production of publications until the end of his life.

In the final years of his intellectual production, Milton Santos expanded the debate towards globalization, questioning their mean effects and proposing ethical and solidary alternatives. In Por uma Outra Globalização, published in 2000, he defended the possibility of a more human world, developed from territories and the concrete needs of populations.

International recognition came in 1994, when he received the Vautrin Lud Prize, considered the “Nobel Prize of Geography,” and was the first intellectual in the southern hemisphere to earn this distinction. Milton Santos passed away on June 24, 2001, in São Paulo, but his work remains as an unquestionable reference for geographers, urban planners and social scientists all over the world.

A legacy for world Geography

Marcio Pochmann, president of the IBGE, recalled Milton Santos’ legacy not only for Brazil but also for world Geography. "Milton Santos was a Brazilian in multiple connection with his country. Besides being a researcher, he was a professor who, throughout his career, influenced may other geographers, and other professionals. He was a reference not only in Brazil, but internationally, an expert engaged in the concrete problems of our country. He is part of a generation dedicated to the necessity of knowing Brazil, but also of transforming it.”.

According to him, Milton Santos is an important reference in the construction of public policies themselves, based on very consistent criticism about the process of modernization and urbanization that Brazil has gone through.

The deputy-director of the IBGE, Gustavo Cayres spoke about the importance of Milton Santos for geosciences. “Celebrating the centenary of Milton Santos’ birth is acknowledging and reinforcing the relevance of a thinker whose contribution is central for geography, but transcends it, reaching many other ways of thinking society and space.”

According to Cayres, his work leads to reflection, criticism and projection. “He does not only offer tools to understand the complexity of society and of space, but inspires a look into possible Dreams and transformations, in a direct dialogue with the IBGE production, considering the purpose inscribed in the Institute’s mission, due to Milton Santos’ as an intellectual reference.”

“Milton Santos is fundamental to understand the relationship between space and technique in Brazil and its position in the Global South. At the same time, these understandings, associated with the knowledge of reality, constitute bases for the exercise of citizenship, working as instruments to see this reality and to produce movements directed to the desires and the transformations of society and of the territory. This is a central role of critical geography, whose constitution is related to both Milton Santos and the production of the IBGE.”

With emotion, the retired IBGE geographer, Adman Hamam, recalls the first contact with professor Milton Santos, in the period when he was coming back from the exile in Europe. At the time, Adman she was at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and had the opportunity to know closely the one who would become one of the greatest references in Brazilian geography. According to her, Milton Santos attracted attention due to his charisma as a lecturer and speaker, especially before a large audience. In the classroom, he was a disciplined and demanding teacher, rigorous with silence and little open to interruptions. Out of the formal academic environment, however, he was a very kind and affectionate person. “In interpersonal relationships, he was extremely kind. A professor who will always be in my heart.”

Adman Hamam also recalls, distinguishingly, her conversations with Milton Santos, which were marked by constant philosophical reflections. The professor showed great interest in classic thought, with frequent references to philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato and insisted on having life experiences that were somehow close to the experiences of his students. This connection would be reflected in the relationship as academic advisor, which, according to the geographer, had a two-way nature. Her master thesis, on rural credit technological changes in Espírito Santo and Paraná and the expansion of soybeans in the region, dialogued directly with the moment when Milton Santos started to formulate the concept of technical-scientific-informational means.

The ex-student says that the professor would absorb the empirical knowledge brought by her, the fruit of a number of trips for work around the west of Paraná, whereas, at the same time, structured a theoretical framework that projected the future of the Brazilian field. “In this concept, he already anticipated what we know nowadays as precision agriculture. It was someone who could see the future,” she explains. She says that was a process of mutual learning, in which student and advisor built, together, new interpretations about the territory and the agrarian dynamics of the country. 

In a reflection about the legacy of Milton Santos, the geographer highlights what, in her interpretation, was the great intellectual mission of the professor: construction of a solid conceptual framework for geography. He used to say thar economics students were introduced to a variety of theories to interpret the economic reality — and that the same should take place with geographers. Its objective was to educate professionals with an acute theoretical perception, who were able to understand the world in a critical way.  “This is the legacy that remained.”

Hoje,Today, Adman observes with admiration the way this Milton Santos thought goes on alive and fruitful, serving as a basis for new interpretations about Brazil, including in the debate of ethnic and racial inequalities. “The theoretical categories built by it remain as a reference. That is the  legacy of professor Milton Santos".