Captive knowledge: the Mapuche’s captivity of the traveler Guinnard, and the Société de Géographie of Paris (1855-1864)

Abstract

In this article I investigate the case of Auguste Guinnard, captive of Mapuche groups in the Pampas and northern Patagonia between 1856 and 1859, and member of the Société de Géographie de Paris. I aim to understand the role of his captivity in the construction of scientific knowledge in France about the Patagonian and Pampas indigenous groups; I examine the travel accounts published in the Parisian press and the bulletins of the Société de Géographie. I argue that the French adventurer, as a cultural broker, socialised a discourse on the indigenous conglomerates that is the product of a tension between the shaping of scientific knowledge and the narrative forms of popular culture that circulated during the 19th century. I find a legitimisation of the discourse and of scientific society through the traveller’s experience.