Imagined Contested Spaces: The Imaging of the Patagonian Region (1840-1881)

Abstract

This study underscores the importance of press discourse as means of production and circulation of representations regarding land and people. Considering the press has a strong influence on the construction of social imaginaries, this study explores how textual images in The (London) Times and The New York Times shaped public opinion about Patagonia and Patagonians and how those images relate to the United States and British national and international political agendas and to the historical/cultural context. In other words, this study proposes to analyze the relationship between media and agency. The time period under study is the second half of the nineteenth century the era during which Argentina focused on the need for exercising sovereignty over Patagonia as a way of expanding the state's frontier, incorporating new commercially productive lands to respond to the demands of the international market, contesting in this way the Chilean interests in the area, and responding to the demands of the aspirations of a ruling class "landed aristocrats" who wanted to attract Europeans. <p> The analysis of this research draws on a total number of 669 articles which have been coded with the purpose of assessing the differences between the United States and British imaging of Patagonia and Patagonians, taking into consideration that England was directly linked through financial investment to Argentina while the United States had chosen a military policy to expand its control of western lands (1865-1890), similar to the Argentine policy for controlling northern and southern lands.