The formation of the field of sanitary and environmental engineering in Brazil: approaches and tensions between sanitation, health and environment in the History of the Science (1960-2022)

Abstract

The article analyzes the process of building the field of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering (SEA) in Brazil. Two arguments are put forward: (1) the constitution of the field of SEA is a historical process that was shaped by conflicts amid political projects and movements that stressed the frontier between the environment, sanitation and health; (2) in this process of configuration, health appears in a secondary way and marked by a recurring technicality in the field of engineering. In order to understand the historical intricacies of this process, some theoretical contributions from the history of the sciences are used, with the aim of capturing how divergences in denominations, such as scientific community, field and collective of thought, help to understand how the SEA was constituted in Brazil. Beyond conceptual fixity, we are looking for interpretative keys that contribute to this intertwining of disputed domains that make up the SEA. In this way, the text claims a historicity that takes as its starting point the discussions on sanitation and health in the First Republic, passing through international mobilizations around the environmental issue in the 1960s and 1970s. Finally, the correlation between sanitation, the environment and health is investigated using the Revista Engenharia Sanitária e Ambiental, an important journal in the field, between 2004 and 2022. The theoretical reflections, bibliographical analysis and empirical material point to the importance of the history of the sciences in understanding the socio-professional identity and epistemological parameters of ESA and how both meet social demands in historical time.