The Natural and the National: Representations of Exploitable Nature During the Chilean International Exhibition of 1875
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Date
2015
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PONTIFICA UNIV CATOLICA CHILE, INST HISTORIA
Abstract
This article analyzes the role of exploitable nature in the International Exhibition held in Chile in 1875. Based on documentation from the organization and development of the even such as letters, catalogs, newspapers and visitor reports the article examines first, the ways in which the countries' exploitable nature related to agriculture and mining was represented in this event. This paper looks to examine the base upon which objectives and models were exhibited, and at the same time examines how the representation of this nature could imply its denaturalization, by strictly presenting it as rational and almost artificial. Second the article analyzes how some parts of nature represented in the exhibition could have been appropriated, at least provisionally, within national criteria in the Chilean case. In relation to the aforementioned, the article focuses on problems such as the agricultural dimension of the country, the centralization of knowledge about nature and the construction and contrast of "national natures" during the Exhibition.
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Keywords
Chile, nineteenth century, international exhibition, exploitable nature, representations, agriculture, national imaginary