Abstract

LEMA, Carolina  and  NUNEZ, Paula Gabriela. Destruction in the Name of Development: Natural Science and Inequality in Patagonian Territorial Planning. Cuad. Geogr. Rev. Colomb. Geogr. [online]. 2019, vol.28, n.2, pp.255-270. ISSN 0121-215X.  https://doi.org/10.15446/rcdg.v28n2.73527.

The problem of unequal territorial integration in the Argentinean Patagonia has been widely studied. This article analyzes the interactions between national and scientific rhetorics in the understanding and design of the Patagonian territory, which allows for the interpellation of scientific technical knowledge from the perspective of its political significance. The paper seeks to broaden the academic register and further the critique of the scientific discourse that grounded the development model for the Argentinean Patagonia from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th. It discusses the historiographical background that linked knowledge to utilitarian logic, based on a cross-referenced analysis of writings by naturalists and emblematic figures of planning of the appropriation and Patagonian development during the analyzed period. It shows the strong impact of scientific production on the social and moral planning of a territory that was incorporated late and unequally into the organization of the State. In Patagonia, the national rhetoric describes its progress in terms of a future promise, defining everything that exists there, persons, plants, and animals, as obstacles to the fulfillment of that promise.

Highlights: Reflection article that links the unequal territorial integration in Patagonia to scientific-technical studies. It analyzes research articles written during the process of territorial incorporation and evinces that the proposals in order to achieve the potential progress of the territory is to modify plants, exterminate native animals, and modify the population by fostering immigration.

Keywords : science; development; historiography; spatial injustice; spatial justice; territorial planning; Patagonia.

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