Nature as a political question: Alexander von Humboldt and power networks

Authors

  • Bernat Lladó i Mas Euroaula, University School of Tourism, in Barcelona (Spain).

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.8.10438

Keywords:

geography, Alexander von Humboldt, nature, networks of power, landscape

Abstract

The life and work of the Prussian geographer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt continues to fascinate, even today. This is partly because his figure concentrates and synthesises the movements, ideas, and even the great contradictions of the time of profound change that was nineteenth-century Europe. One of these great contradictions is the relationship between science and power. While on the one hand science was demanding its autonomy and universal value, its «purity», and objectivity more than ever before, on the other, the field was often entangled in questions of political and economic power. In an era in which European countries were intensifying their race for world control, information and knowledge about nature gave them a vanguard position when it came to managing this control. Here, we situate Alexander von Humboldt’s innovative geographical work in this context.

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Author Biography

Bernat Lladó i Mas, Euroaula, University School of Tourism, in Barcelona (Spain).

Professor of Geography at Euroaula, University School of Tourism, in Barcelona (Spain). He is interested in the history of geography and European territorial culture and is the author of several papers and is the author and translator of the book  Franco Farinelli. Del mapa al laberinto  (Icària, 2013). He has participated in the geographical art projects «Urbanoporosi. Sabadell i els silencis urbans» (Alliance Française, Sabadell, 2012) and «Geopresències. De la distància gràfica a les micropolítiques» (Sala d’Art Roca Umbert, Granollers, 2016).

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Published

2018-06-05

How to Cite

Lladó i Mas, B. (2018). Nature as a political question: Alexander von Humboldt and power networks. Metode Science Studies Journal, (8), 16–23. https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.8.10438
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