Focusing on a small group of natural historians working in Argentina in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, I argue that the relations between travellers and their fieldsites are particular, complex, and multivalent. In opposition to the suggestion that the writings of all Euro-American travellers during the Age of Empire’ were determined only by a single, superior, and colonising representational economy, I assert that encounters with foreign lands were as important in the formation of travellers' ideas as the theories and preconceptions brought with them from Europe. Although it is argued that the more bombastic rhetoric of the travel texts of European, and particularly British, travellers in Argentina were in part influenced by British financial and technological dominance in Argentina in the 19th century, the importance of other sources of inspiration are also drawn, including the landscapes and natures of Argentina themselves. Focusing particularly on the writings of William Henry Hudson, the prominent Victorian natural historian, the paper lays out the significance of the Patagonian landscape in the development and vindication of his ideas about nature and the human self—summarised in Hudson's theory of ‘animism’. Hudson's combination of Darwinian and eugenicist theories of evolution with Argentine-government-inspired ideas of social development are also noted. In conclusion I argue both for the need to pay attention to the sociocultural and historical processes that engender discourses on particular places and natures, as well as the importance of acknowledging dispersion and multivalence within such discursive formations.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AllenD, 1976The Naturalist in Britain: A Social History (Allen Lane, London); reprinted in 1994 (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ).
2.
BellMButhnRHeffermanM, (Eds), 1994Geography and Imperialism (Manchester University Press, Manchester).
3.
BluntA, 1996, Review of Spurr's The Rhetoric of Empire, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space12125–126.
4.
BrowneJ, 1996, “Biogeography and empire”, in Cultures of Natural History Eds JardineNSecordASparyE, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge) pp 305–321.
5.
CameronE, 1910A Woman's Winter in South America (Stanley Paul, London).
6.
ClarkeE, 1878Visit to South America with Notes and Observations on the Moral and Physical Features of the Country and the Incidents of the Voyage (Dean and Son, London).
7.
CrommelinM, 1894Over the Andes from the Argentine to Chile and Peru (Richard Bentley and Son, London).
8.
DarwinC, 1839Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited During the Voyages of H.M.S “Beagle” Round the World, under the command of Capt. Fitz Roy R.N. (Henry Colburn, London).
9.
DarwinC, 1859The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (John Murray, London).
10.
DettelbachM, 1996, “Humboldtian science”, in Cultures of Natural History Eds JardinNSecordJSparyE, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge) pp 287–304.
11.
DixieF, 1880Across Patagonia (Richard Bentley and Sons, London).
12.
FernsH S, 1960Britain and Argentina in the Nineteenth Century (Oxford University Press, Oxford).
13.
FernsH S, 1992, “Argentina: Part of an informal empire?”, in The Land that England Lost: Argentina and Britain, A Special Relationship Eds HennesseyAKingJ, (British Academic Press, London) pp 49–62.
14.
FoucaultM, 1970The Order of Things (Routledge, London).
15.
FoucaultM, 1972The Archaeology of Knowledge (Routledge, London).
GruffuddP, 1994, “Back to the land: Historiography, rurality and the nation in interwar Wales”Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series1961–77.
18.
GruffuddP, 1995, “‘A crusade against consumption’: Environment, health and social reform in Wales, 1900 – 1939”Journal of Historical Geography2139–54.
19.
HartleyB, 1996, “The living academics of nature: Scientific experiment in learning and communicating the new skills of early nineteenth century landscape painting”Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science27(2) 149–180.
20.
HennesseyWKingJ, (Eds), 1992The Land That England Lost-Argentina and Britain, A Special Relationship (British Academic Press, London).
21.
HudsonW H, 1885The Purple Land that England Lost (Sampson Low, London).
22.
HudsonW H, 1888–89Argentine Ornithology: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Birds of the Argentine Republic (R H Porter, London).
23.
HudsonW H, 1892The Naturalist in La Plata (Chapman and Hall, London).
24.
HudsonW H, 1893Idle Days in Patagonia (Chapman and Hall, London).
HudsonW H, 1898Birds in London (Longmans Green, London).
27.
HudsonW H, 1900Nature in Downland (Longmans, London).
28.
HudsonW H, 1901Birds and Man (Longmans Green, London).
29.
HudsonW H, 1903Hampshire Days (Longmans Green, London).
30.
HudsonW H, 1904The Purple Land (Duckworth, London).
31.
HudsonW H, 1908The Land's End (Hutchinson, London).
32.
HudsonW H, 1909Afoot in England (J M Dent, London).
33.
HudsonW H, 1910A Shepherd's Life: Impressions of the South Wiltshire Downs (Methuen, London).
34.
HudsonW H, 1913Adventures among Birds (Hutchinson, London).
35.
HudsonW H, 1918Far Away and Long Ago: A History of My Early Life (J M Dent, London).
36.
HudsonW H, 1919Birds in Town and Village (J M Dent, London).
37.
HudsonW H, 1920Birds of La Plata2 volumes (J M Dent, London).
38.
HudsonW H, 1922A Hind in Richmond Park (J M Dent, London).
39.
HuntB, 1997, “Doing science in a global empire: Cable telegraphy and electrical physics in Victorian Britain”, in Victorian Science in Context Ed. LightmanB, (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL) pp 312–333.
40.
JardinNSecordJSparyE, (Eds), 1996Cultures of Natural History (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge).
41.
JonesK, 1986, “Nineteenth century British travel accounts of Argentina”Ethnohistory33(2) 195–211.
42.
KuklickHKohlerR, (Eds), 1996Science in the Field- Osiris Special Issue (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY).
43.
LawrenceCShapinS, (Eds), 1998Science Incarnate: Historical Embodiments of Natural Knowledge (Chicago University Press, Chicago, IL).
44.
LightmanB, (Ed.), 1997Victorian Science in Context (Chicago University Press, Chicago, IL).
45.
LivingstoneD N, 1992The Geographical Tradition (Blackwell, Oxford).
46.
LoweL, 1991Critical Terrains: French and British Orientalisms (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY).
47.
McEwanC, 1996, “Paradise or pandemonium? West African landscapes in the travel accounts of Victorian women”Journal of Historical Geography2268–83.
MatlessD, 1998Landscape and Englishness (Reaktion, London).
50.
MillerD, 1991W.H. Hudson and the Elusive Paradise (Macmillan, London).
51.
NaylorS, 1998Britain and Argentina During the ‘Age of Empire’: Four Historical Geographies of Writing at the End of the Nineteenth Century unpublished PhD thesis, Department of Environmental Social Sciences, University of Keele, Keele, Staffs.
52.
NaylorS, 1999, “Spatial regulation of British emigration to Argentina”, in Sovereignty and Subjectivity Eds EdkinsJPersramNPin-FatV, (Lynne Reinner, Boulder, CO) pp 71–88.
53.
NaylorSJonesG A, 1997, “Writing orderly geographies of distant places-the regional survey and Latin America”Ecumene4(3) 273–299.
54.
NicolsonM, 1990, “Alexander von Humboldt and the geography of vegetation”, in Romanticism and the Sciences Eds CunninghamAJardineN, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge) pp 169–185.
55.
NyhartL, 1996, “Natural history and the ‘new’ biology”, in Cultures of Natural History Eds JardinNSecordJSparyE, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge) pp 426–443.
56.
OutramD, 1996, “New spaces in natural history”, in Cultures of Natural History Eds JardinNSecordJSparyE, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge) pp 249–265.
57.
PrattM L, 1992Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (Routledge, London).
58.
PrichardH H, 1911Through the Heart of Patagonia (Thomas Nelson and Sons, London).
59.
RabyP, 1996Bright Paradise: Victorian Scientific Travellers (Chatto and Windus, London).
60.
RonnerA, 1986W.H. Hudson: The Man, The Novelist, The Naturalist (Ams Press, New York).
61.
SaidE, 1978Orientalism (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London).
62.
SpurrD, 1993The Rhetoric of Empire- Colonial Discourse in Journalism, Travel Writing and Imperial Administration (Duke University Press, Durham, NC).
63.
ShamaS, 1995Landscape and Memory (Fontana, London).
64.
StepanN, 1991‘The Hour of Eugenics’: Race, Gender and Nation in Latin America (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY).
65.
StewartF, 1995A Natural History of Nature Writing (Island Press, Washington, DC).
66.
TaylorC, 1989Sources of the Self The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge).
67.
TomalinR, 1982W.H. Hudson: A Biography (Faber and Faber, London).
68.
TylorE B, 1871Primitive Culture republished in 1958 as The Origins of Culture (Harper and Row, New York).
69.
WalkerJ, 1992, “British travel writing and Argentina”, in The Land That England Lost-Argentina and Britain, A Special Relationship Eds HennesseyWKingJ, (British Academic Press, London) pp 183–199.
70.
WhiteG, 1788–89The Natural History of Selborne; reprinted in 1984 (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, Middx).
71.
WhiteE W, 1881–82Cameos from the Silver-Land; or the Experiences of a Young Naturalist in the Argentine Republic2 volumes (John Van Voorst, London).
72.
WilsonJ, 1981W.H. Hudson: The Colonial's Revenge (Institute of Latin American Studies, London).
73.
WilsonJ, 1992, “Charles Darwin and W.H. Hudson”, in The Land That England Lost-Argentina and Britain, A Special Relationship Eds HennesseyWKingJ, (British Academic Press, London) pp 173–181.
