Relatos imperiais

a literatura de viagem entre a política e a ciência na Espanha, França e Inglaterra (1680-1780)

Abstract

Travel literature emerged as a cultural practice associated to overseas
European expansion. From being at first associated to the curious stories
and adventures of the first Portuguese and Spanish voyages to Africa as
well as to the Middle and the Far East, travel literature consolidated as
a synonym of knowledge just as the Scientific Revolution established
increasingly stable patterns of truth, authenticity and objectivity. Between
the end of the XVIIth century and the end of the XVIIIth century, colonial
powers, which were involved in an intense struggle to control the seas and
its overseas territories, sought to legitimate their expansionist projects by
organizing expeditions based on the principles of the Enlightenment which
were held at the time. They thus oriented their expansionist projects so
as to gather universal knowledge on the planet, its vegetable and animal
species, and its societies and cultures. By means of analyzing the collection
of travel literature kept at the library of the Buenos Aires Ethnographic
Museum, the present essay seeks to identify the characteristics of these
expeditions and the narratives that described them in order to connect
them to the international context in which they were produced, the
imperial policy of each State and the similarities and differences of the
cultural and social conditions of the audiences interested in them.