The Imperial Gaze and Its Displacement Towards the Border Spaces: The Case of the Narrative Travel of Florence Dixie to Pat

Abstract

This article develops a reading from the imperial gaze in the narrative of Lady Florence Dixie’s voyage to Patagonia, Across Patagonia, which took place in 1879.
From this category of analysis, we realize the tropos that underlie this form of hi- erarchical representation; the displacement towards counter-spaces (border space) defined as alternative to modernity, from a space-time dimension, the sublime and sometimes ominous representation of this “other” nature and its inhabitants, and the sense of estrangement that emerges in contact with the foreign, the unfamiliar, in this utopian and at the same time heterotropic locus of Patagonia, upon which it is possible to project and experience repressed sensations of modern life.