De la exploración a la explotación. Tres notas sobre la colonización de la Patagonia austral

Contextualizing three descriptions from John R. Spears, an American journalist who traveled on Patagonia’s coasts in 1894, this work explores the transition moment when Patagonia ceased to be a mythical place to discover and became a land for economic profit. It was the time of Indian genocide, of the massive arrival of migrant labour, and of the pre-eminence of the private interest over national sovereignties. It’s also the moment when free circulation of beings and objects on the pampas was captured by the sheep-farmer machine and organized following its industrial criteria. It’s the time, in short, when Patagonia’s past initiates an homogenisation process as the history of a progressive colonisation, and to which we have to return to resituate its different trends