Bonanza o Falsas Riquezas: Cambiantes Imaginarios Mexicanos del Trópico y el Impulso Civilizatorio
Existing scholarship on “tropicality” emphasizes how Europeans and US-Americans constructed the tropics discursively and visually in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Scientists, investors, and travelers denigrated tropical spaces to legitimize imperialism, labeling them backwards, racially d...
Published in: | Historia Ambiental Latinoamericana y Caribeña (HALAC) revista de la Solcha |
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Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | Spanish Portuguese |
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UniEVANGELICA
2022
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Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.32991/2237-2717.2022v12i2.p325-358 https://doaj.org/article/2cd32a7d49e64551958f2d110961d224 |
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fttriple:oai:gotriple.eu:oai:doaj.org/article:2cd32a7d49e64551958f2d110961d224 2023-05-15T17:35:19+02:00 Bonanza o Falsas Riquezas: Cambiantes Imaginarios Mexicanos del Trópico y el Impulso Civilizatorio Good or False Riquezas: Changing Mexican imaginations of the Tropic and Civilistic Impulso Matthew Vitz 2022-08-01 https://doi.org/10.32991/2237-2717.2022v12i2.p325-358 https://doaj.org/article/2cd32a7d49e64551958f2d110961d224 es pt spa por UniEVANGELICA doi:10.32991/2237-2717.2022v12i2.p325-358 2237-2717 https://doaj.org/article/2cd32a7d49e64551958f2d110961d224 undefined Historia Ambiental Latinoamericana y Caribeña, Vol 12, Iss 2 (2022) Mexico the tropics tropicality environmental thought development José Vasconcelos hist scipo Journal Article https://vocabularies.coar-repositories.org/resource_types/c_6501/ 2022 fttriple https://doi.org/10.32991/2237-2717.2022v12i2.p325-358 2023-01-22T19:17:02Z Existing scholarship on “tropicality” emphasizes how Europeans and US-Americans constructed the tropics discursively and visually in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Scientists, investors, and travelers denigrated tropical spaces to legitimize imperialism, labeling them backwards, racially degenerative, disease-ridden, and unconducive to civilization without white European intervention These works unwittingly reproduce a central assumption of the very imperialists they critique: namely, that North Atlantic elites controlled knowledge production. They thus marginalize the important theorizing and conceptualizing that transpired in tropical spaces. Following independence, Latin American national elites agonized over how to integrate their tropical territories, many of which remained isolated, and make them legible for economic modernization. This article uses Mexico as a case study for Latin American representations about the tropics given its diverse temperate and tropical geography, its key role in the global commercial economy, and its robust intellectual production. I argue that the ways in which Mexican intellectuals—public officials, geographers, philosophers, and others—thought about their low-lying tropical lands molded nation-building projects and contributed to the global production of environmental knowledge at a time when notions of tropical peril and degeneracy were giving way to the promise of tropical bonanza. By tracing the changes and continuities of Mexicans’ tropical discourses in a global context, I underscore the underappreciated environmental and geographic thought of influential Mexicans—from Matías Romero and Francisco Bulnes to José Vasconcelos—who rarely appear in environmental historiography. A focus on these different imaginaries regarding the significance, purpose, and place of Mexico’s tropical lands also reveals the extent to which material interventions in the tropics and discursive representations of the tropics have co-constituted each other. Article in Journal/Newspaper North Atlantic Unknown Bonanza ENVELOPE(-119.820,-119.820,55.917,55.917) Bulnes ENVELOPE(-57.956,-57.956,-63.295,-63.295) Romero ENVELOPE(-57.350,-57.350,-63.283,-63.283) Historia Ambiental Latinoamericana y Caribeña (HALAC) revista de la Solcha 12 2 325 358 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Unknown |
op_collection_id |
fttriple |
language |
Spanish Portuguese |
topic |
Mexico the tropics tropicality environmental thought development José Vasconcelos hist scipo |
spellingShingle |
Mexico the tropics tropicality environmental thought development José Vasconcelos hist scipo Matthew Vitz Bonanza o Falsas Riquezas: Cambiantes Imaginarios Mexicanos del Trópico y el Impulso Civilizatorio |
topic_facet |
Mexico the tropics tropicality environmental thought development José Vasconcelos hist scipo |
description |
Existing scholarship on “tropicality” emphasizes how Europeans and US-Americans constructed the tropics discursively and visually in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Scientists, investors, and travelers denigrated tropical spaces to legitimize imperialism, labeling them backwards, racially degenerative, disease-ridden, and unconducive to civilization without white European intervention These works unwittingly reproduce a central assumption of the very imperialists they critique: namely, that North Atlantic elites controlled knowledge production. They thus marginalize the important theorizing and conceptualizing that transpired in tropical spaces. Following independence, Latin American national elites agonized over how to integrate their tropical territories, many of which remained isolated, and make them legible for economic modernization. This article uses Mexico as a case study for Latin American representations about the tropics given its diverse temperate and tropical geography, its key role in the global commercial economy, and its robust intellectual production. I argue that the ways in which Mexican intellectuals—public officials, geographers, philosophers, and others—thought about their low-lying tropical lands molded nation-building projects and contributed to the global production of environmental knowledge at a time when notions of tropical peril and degeneracy were giving way to the promise of tropical bonanza. By tracing the changes and continuities of Mexicans’ tropical discourses in a global context, I underscore the underappreciated environmental and geographic thought of influential Mexicans—from Matías Romero and Francisco Bulnes to José Vasconcelos—who rarely appear in environmental historiography. A focus on these different imaginaries regarding the significance, purpose, and place of Mexico’s tropical lands also reveals the extent to which material interventions in the tropics and discursive representations of the tropics have co-constituted each other. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Matthew Vitz |
author_facet |
Matthew Vitz |
author_sort |
Matthew Vitz |
title |
Bonanza o Falsas Riquezas: Cambiantes Imaginarios Mexicanos del Trópico y el Impulso Civilizatorio |
title_short |
Bonanza o Falsas Riquezas: Cambiantes Imaginarios Mexicanos del Trópico y el Impulso Civilizatorio |
title_full |
Bonanza o Falsas Riquezas: Cambiantes Imaginarios Mexicanos del Trópico y el Impulso Civilizatorio |
title_fullStr |
Bonanza o Falsas Riquezas: Cambiantes Imaginarios Mexicanos del Trópico y el Impulso Civilizatorio |
title_full_unstemmed |
Bonanza o Falsas Riquezas: Cambiantes Imaginarios Mexicanos del Trópico y el Impulso Civilizatorio |
title_sort |
bonanza o falsas riquezas: cambiantes imaginarios mexicanos del trópico y el impulso civilizatorio |
publisher |
UniEVANGELICA |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.32991/2237-2717.2022v12i2.p325-358 https://doaj.org/article/2cd32a7d49e64551958f2d110961d224 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-119.820,-119.820,55.917,55.917) ENVELOPE(-57.956,-57.956,-63.295,-63.295) ENVELOPE(-57.350,-57.350,-63.283,-63.283) |
geographic |
Bonanza Bulnes Romero |
geographic_facet |
Bonanza Bulnes Romero |
genre |
North Atlantic |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic |
op_source |
Historia Ambiental Latinoamericana y Caribeña, Vol 12, Iss 2 (2022) |
op_relation |
doi:10.32991/2237-2717.2022v12i2.p325-358 2237-2717 https://doaj.org/article/2cd32a7d49e64551958f2d110961d224 |
op_rights |
undefined |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.32991/2237-2717.2022v12i2.p325-358 |
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Historia Ambiental Latinoamericana y Caribeña (HALAC) revista de la Solcha |
container_volume |
12 |
container_issue |
2 |
container_start_page |
325 |
op_container_end_page |
358 |
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