The dignity of the defeated. The construction of otherness in travel books in Argentine Patagonie before and aer the indigenous genocide
Abstract
The “Journey to Southern Patagonia” (1876) by Francisco P. Moreno (2008) and the “Journey to the Araucanian Country” by Estanislao Zeballos (1881) (2000; 2002) offer two testimonies of the vision of those affected by that incorporation of territory carried out by the Argentine state through violence. Starting from what was called "conquest of the desert": this is the incorporation in 1979 of vast Patagonian territories carried out by General Roca. Both authors belong to the generation of 80; naturalists in the tradition of Darwin and Humbolt write travel books in which they narrate, classify and gloss both Patagonian nature and its inhabitants; his texts are incardinated in two moments of the genocide: the before, the text by Moreno and the after, the text by Zeballos based on the description of two indigenous characters.
