In early transcultural thinking, the subject of climate plays a quite prominent role. This may be explained by the fact that most concepts of transculturalism have been developed in the southern (colonized and ex-colonized) regions of the planet, while until the 20th century academic discourse on culture, cultural identity, and cultural difference was dominated by authors and institutions from the northern (colonizing) regions of the world. But climate also played a crucial role in traditional European thinking on culture, for example in neo-classical interpretations of the Greek origins of Western civilization, often explained by referring to a supposed ideal mix of climatic conditions on the peninsula. Or, when Alexander von Humboldt explained the supposed idleness and cultural unproductiveness of the Native Americans through reference to the favorable environment of the tropics’ richness of natural products that made it unnecessary to work.
In his famous book The Cosmic Race (La raza cósmica), Mexican author José Vasconcelos wrote in 1925: “The great civilizations began in the Tropics and the final civilization will return to the Tropics.”(23) Vasconcelos, considered a precursor of transcultural studies, focused on the idea of “mestizaje,” the mix of races that had occurred in Latin (or Ibero-America) during colonial times and thereafter. Contrary to the dominant racial thinking of his time, Vasconcelos stressed the productive potentials of such a mixture as a fusion of complementary dispositions (reason and the spiritual; technical genius and the poetic…) associated with black, Indian, white and other populations without the domination of a single race. Such a promising mutual cultural fertilization in the culture of a cosmic race would be the great project of the future. “The warm climate is propitious for the interaction and gathering of all peoples,” Vasconcelos writes. He forecasts the future settlement of “all humanity” in the warm regions of the planet. “The synthetic race will be able to consolidate its culture” in the favorable climate of the Tropics, he is convinced.
In the 1950s, Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre called for a “tropicalization” of social theory that, according to Freyre, had been produced only in the West until his time and therefore bore the marks of its origins in temperate zones. In his earlier publications of the 1930s on Brazil as the transcultural nation par excellence, Freyre heavily stressed the factor of climate for achieving what he called a successful colonization. The very first sentences of Sasa Grande e Senzala, his major work on transculturalization in Brazil, deal with this factor. Freyre argues that the Portuguese had been prepared for processes of miscegenation (with Blacks and Indians) and cultural hybridization in Brazil by their specific historical and geographical conditions. Ever close to Africa, through cultural exchange with the Moors and a similar climate, the Portuguese had the opportunity to experience life in the Tropics through their journeys to Africa and India before their colonization of Brazil. In his writings, Freyre detects an analogy between the physical capability of acclimatization, a mentality of living beyond rigid antagonisms, and the readiness for cultural intermixture. (CK)

Sources:
Freyre, Gilberto (1987): The Masters and the Slaves: A Study in the Development of Brazilian Civilization. University of California Press.
Vasconcelos, José (1997): The Cosmic Race: A bilingual edition. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Burke, Peter/Pallares-Burke, Maria Lúcia G. (2008): Gilberto Freyre: Social Theory in the Tropics. Oxford: Peter Lang.