“What is worth to be seen, the curious and the unknown", on the natural history of the Magellanic region at the end of the 18th century

Abstract

The general objective of this work is to inquire into the forms of production of knowledge, production around natural history, taking as a corpus of analysis the travel narratives of Spanish scientific explorations in late 18th century, by Antonio de Córdova (1785-1789) and the Alejandro Malaspina and José de Bustamante (1789-1794), with destination or passing through Magellan. The analysis will be focused on the reading of the routers and reports drawn up by pilots, surgeons and botanists, allowing us to approach from here, as a specific objective, the ways of approaching, selecting, describing and classifying the natural world of the strait, ports, islands and fiords of the southern region.