University of Wollongong Research Online University of Wollongong Thesis Collection 1954-2016 University of Wollongong Thesis Collections 2002 Immigrant, exiled and hybrid: nineteenth-century Latin American women travel writers Luz M. Hincapie University of Wollongong Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/theses University of Wollongong Copyright Warning You may print or download ONE copy of this document for the purpose of your own research or study. The University does not authorise you to copy, communicate or otherwise make available electronically to any other person any copyright material contained on this site. You are reminded of the following: This work is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this work may be reproduced by any process, nor may any other exclusive right be exercised, without the permission of the author. 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For further information contact the UOW Library: [email protected] NOTE This online version of the thesis may have different page formatting and pagination from the paper copy held in the University of Wollongong Library. UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG COPYRIGHT WARNING You may print or download ONE copy of this document for the purpose of your own research or study. The University does not authorise you to copy, communicate or otherwise make available electronically to any other person any copyright material contained on this site. You are reminded of the following: Copyright owners are entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. A reproduction of material that is protected by copyright may be a copyright infringement. A court may impose penalties and award damages in relation to offences and infringements relating to copyright material. Higher penalties may apply, and higher damages may be awarded, for offences and infringements involving the conversion of material into digital or electronic form. IMMIGRANT, EXILED AND HYBRID: NINETEENTH-CENTURY LATIN AMERICAN WOMEN TRAVEL WRITERS A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree Master of Arts (Post-colonial Literatures) from UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG by LUZ MERCEDES HINCAPIE BETANCOURT BA, Intercultural Studies (with emphasis on Latin America) Faculty of Arts, Department of English 2002 11 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my thesis supervisors, Paul Sharrad and Anne Collett, for their help in the writing of this thesis. I would also like to thank Robyn Foster and administrative staff for their help. Finally, I am very grateful to my partner, Marta Cabrera for all her support. This thesis is dedicated to all nineteenth-century Latin American women among which are my grandmothers and great grandmothers. Ill ABSTRACT \ This research on three selected Latin American women travel writers of the nineteenth century focuses concretely on the topic of identity vis-a-vis the displacement experience. To approach the question, a cross-disciplinary methqdology has been employed. Based on a textual discourse analysis, the methodology includes applications of literary theory (travel writing specifically), post-colonial theory and gender issues situated specifically in relation to the context of Latin America in the nineteenth century. The selected authors and their texts are: Maria de las Mercedes Santa Cruz y Montalvo, Countess of Merlin’s Viaje a la Habana, Soledad Acosta de Samper’s Viaje a Espana en 1892 and Juana Manuela Gorriti’s Ea tierra natal and the narration “Impresiones y Paisajes” (from Miscelaneas). They were chosen for their diverse travelling experiences: migration, work/leisure and exile, respectively with consideration given to their different national origins (Cuba, Colombia and Argentina). The analysis focuses on the way the authors construct an identity in their texts and identifies the strategies employed in order to do so. Thus, a discursive analysis of Merlin’s text shows how the author reconstructs a double national identity through her self-fashioning both as Cuban Creole and as a French Countess. In the case of Acosta, her text constituted a tool to build an erudite, scientific voice for the author in a time when the constraints on the production of women’s travelogues pointed towards more typically “feminine” discourses. Finally, Gorriti’s text permitted the author to regain a past lost by exile and to construct a national identity based on a tri-national belonging. 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration i Acknowledgements ii Abstract iii s Introduction 3 Chapter I. Peregrinations: Displacement and Identity in the Travel Writing of Three Latin American Women Introduction 16 Searching for the Latin American Travellers ' 19 Autobiography and the Travelling Self 22 Discourse(s) in Women’s Travel Writing 24 Questions of Identity 27 How to Read Latin American Travel Writers 30 Chapter II. Viaje a la Habana: a French-Cuban Aristocrat’s Search for Identity Maria de las Mercedes Santa Cruz y Montalvo 34 Voyage to Havana 37 The Patria and God 39 The Creole Aristocracy 44 Merlin and Slavery 50 The Countess Encounters Her Primitive Others 56 Reconciling Identities: Journey to the Past 67 2 Chapter III. Soledad Acosta de Samper: the Self-fashioning of an Erudite Criolla Delegate of Colombia 71 The General’s Daughter 75 The History and Architecture of Power 77 \ Recovering the Bonds of Filial Affection 89 The Inevitable Dichotomy: Civilisation versus Barbarism 96 Acosta de Samper’s Equality of the Classes 102 The Equality of the Sexes? Or the vulnerability of two women travelling alone 105 The Construction of Identity for a fin de siecle Colombian Woman 113 Chapter IV. Juana Manuela Gorriti: A Herstory of Exile _and Displacement “Siempre esta por marcharse, siempre quiere volver” 116 The Exiles of Juana Manuela 118 Journey to Recover the Ephemeral Past 123 The Importance of Society for Gorriti 131 The Patriotic Voyager or Gorriti’s Self-Definition 145 The Sorrow of Farewells 154 Conclusion 159 Bibliography 163 3 INTRODUCTION \ This research on Latin American women travel writers of the nineteenth century is informed by a triple purpose: first, the desire to re-discover and to rescue from oblivion the names and travelogues of a number of Latin American women; second, the desire to read and analyse those texts from a perspective other than the merely biographical or of simply inscribing them in the gallery of “the great women of Latin America”; and third, the hope that the reading of these texts will provide new insights into the life of Latin American women and into the way text and identity are mutually, discursively produced. Hence, the perspective proposed here is that of a textual discursive analysis, which takes into account the textual production of identity in the face of the experience of displacement. In order to accomplish such a purpose, this introduction will place the women writers analysed here, as well as their texts, in the context of nineteenth-century European, North American and Latin American travel writing production. This contextualising is necessary in order to establish comparisons between the immense recognition that English and North American women travel writers enjoy in contrast to the “invisibility” of their Latin American counterparts. Such recognition has been made explicit not only by the re-publishing of nineteenth-century travelogues by English and North American women, but also by the growing number of academic texts analysing their works. Although fewer and less known than the Anglo-American texts, Latin American travelogues are important historical and literary documents that provide an insight into the lives and times of their authors and into the discourses circulating during the period of national construction 4 in the nineteenth century. The comparison between Anglo-American and Latin American women travel writers also reveals the connections between the colonial (European) and the neo-colonial (Latin American) discourses of the time as well as the agency of these authors in their construction. The comparison, however, ends here since the way in which Latin American women were able to insert their voices in the traditionally male activity of travel writing led them on different paths to those of their contemporary European and North American women travel writers. In this sense, this project involves geographically specific research questions regarding the topic of identity and displacement. In addition to discussing these issues, this introduction will also describe the criteria for the selection of the texts included in this analysis