Monumentalizing Landscapes: Ontologies of Scale and Guatemalan National Consolidation.
In 1905, Manuel Estrada Cabrera, one of Guatemala's most infamous dictators, inaugurates a gargantuan relief map, one of Latin American's most dramatic cartographic projects of the time. In 1882, the nation had relinquished vast regions of its territory to Mexico. This exemplified the region's fragi...
| Publicado en: | Revista Hispánica Moderna (0034-9593) Vol. 77; no. 1; pp. 22 - 39 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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University of Pennsylvania Press
Jun2024
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=178338888&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 178338888 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00349593 3BJ5 jtl: Revista Hispánica Moderna (0034-9593) issn: 00349593 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jun2024 vid: 77 iid: 1 pid: 4636 pub: University of Pennsylvania Press artinfo: ui: 178338888 10.1353/rhm.2024.a930040 ppf: 22 ppct: 17 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 304KB tig: atl: Monumentalizing Landscapes: Ontologies of Scale and Guatemalan National Consolidation. aug: au: Azurdia, Diego affil: University of Cambridge su: Topographic maps American Civil War, 1861-1865 Natural disasters Cultural landscapes Landscapes Intervention (International law) Civil war Geography Guatemala sug: subj: Guatemala Topographic maps American Civil War, 1861-1865 Natural disasters Cultural landscapes Landscapes Intervention (International law) Civil war Geography keyword: Central American Studies Guatemalan Relief Map Landscape Studies Manuel Estrada Cabrera National Consolidation Production of Space ab: In 1905, Manuel Estrada Cabrera, one of Guatemala's most infamous dictators, inaugurates a gargantuan relief map, one of Latin American's most dramatic cartographic projects of the time. In 1882, the nation had relinquished vast regions of its territory to Mexico. This exemplified the region's fragility in the face of continuous Central American civil wars and a commercial weakness that rendered Guatemala vulnerable to foreign intervention, both political and economic. In this context, Guatemalan was faced with foundational narrative voids and a lack of any semblance of national identity. In this essay I contend that the state turned to the nation's volcanic geography as a solution: its dramatic landscapes could serve as both settings and protagonists for an alternative spatial narrative. I argue that the relief map can be read as an ideal fossilized artifact capturing these symbolic operations imposed by Guatemala's creole liberal elite within the complex global and national spatial dynamics of the time. In its monumentality, the map attempted to symbolically tap into and domesticate the power of the nation's landscape for the sake of national consolidation: a case of the natural sublime turned cultural/political sublime. In the process, and underlying these symbolic spatial operations, the State inflicted unprecedented violence on nature and rendered invisible entire sections of the population. The project ultimately fails, however, because the semantic power of a volcanic landscape is predicated on a chaotic and volatile land that had seeped into popular and political imagination through a long history of natural disasters and corresponding social turmoil. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Revista Hispánica Moderna (0034-9593) is the property of University of Pennsylvania Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Revista Hispánica Moderna (0034-9593) holder: University of Pennsylvania Press dt: @attributes: year: 2024 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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