Abstract

MARTINEZ PINZON, Felipe. Geography for War: Siege Narratives in Francisco José de Caldas. rev.estud.soc. [online]. 2011, n.38, pp.108-119. ISSN 0123-885X.

In two emblematic texts-"Estado de la geografía del Virreinato de Santafé" (1807) and "Del influjo del clima sobre los seres organizados" (1808)-Francisco José de Caldas constructs a spatial narrative for the New Granada where the site of siege is localized at the center of the imagined map of the Vice-kingdom. The outside of civilization are the lowlands-and more radically, the jungle-with its mulatto, zambo, black, and indigenous populations, which always already threaten to take over the inside, the place of enunciation, a tempered climate of altitude, similar to that of Europe, inhabited by fantasized whites or light-skinned Hispanized/able mestizos. In creating a besieged geography, Caldas also invents a lasting paradigm whereby the Colombian state exercises warfare on its own territory as a means of actualizing its genetic narrative. Thus, this ideological construct sets in motion the menace of invasion as a ready-made dispositive that actualizes the polarities of Caldas's exclusionary map.

Keywords : Francisco José de Caldas; Colombian Independence; Enlightenment in New Granada; War in Colombia.

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