Y Drafod: circulation of promotional literature and the formation of territorial knowledge in Patagonia

Abstract

Symbols, imageries and representations have fueled the recent production on urban and territorial history. However, the materiality that conditions the circulation of such representations has been tended to be ignored by many of the authors involved in this historiographical renovation. The purpose of this paper is to examine the implications of texts circulation upon the formation of territorial knowledge inthe context of 19th century agricultural colonization in Argentina. The case study is the colony that the Welsh founded in Patagonia in 1865 and the sources analyzed include most of the promotional literature written by those who took part in the venture. By acknowledging the importance of the local newspaper Y Drafod for the production and circulation of written texts within the colony, we will attempt to bring together the representational and the material dimensions of the territorial transformations activated by colonization.