La conformación de la Patagonia como región mirada desde la prensa: El Mercurio de Valparaíso y El Magallanes (1893-1910)

Abstract

This paper tries to analyze how the notion of the Patagonia region is constructed in the press between 1893 and 1910 in Chile. For this purpose, El Mercurio de Valparaíso and El Magallanes were chosen as newspapers. Observing the discourses that constructed both the geographic space and the subjects that inhabit the region. El Mercurio de Valparaíso shows the discourses that the hegemonic group has about Patagonia. El Magallanes, on the other hand, focuses on the discourses that determine the social reality of the region. Where capital, the State and intersubjectivities play a key role in understanding Patagonia in the time period under analysis. Understanding that the establishment of the State and capital in the area generated a double coloniality. This was expressed in the exclusion of the Aonikenk population. This situation was based on the notions of civilization and barbarism that determined the position of the indigenous population in the social structure present in Patagonia. This discursive construction was produced and reproduced by the State through different instruments and cultural devices of the time, such as the written press.