"The Colonial Politics of Meteorology: Two Spanish Sisters in the Gulf of Guinea."

Benita Sampedro, Associate Professor of Spanish Colonial Studies, Hofstra University

TALK AT 5:30 PM   FOLLOWED BY RECEPTION

 

 

 

 

The Colonial Politics of Meteorology: Two Spanish Sisters in the Gulf of Guinea

 

In 1874, nineteen-year-old Isabel Urquiola traveled with her younger sister Manuela to one of the southernmost edges of the Spanish empire: the Muni estuary, which marks the maritime border between today’s Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. Initially accompanying Isabel’s new husband, the Basque explorer Manuel Iradier, they resided on the small Atlantic island of Elobey Chico, and engaged in a groundbreaking program of scientific data collection and annotations, particularly in the field of meteorology. Like other expeditions by European women of this period, however, the work of the Urquiola sisters—while challenging the boundaries of gender convention and advancing the frontiers of science—served ultimately to facilitate the consolidation of imperial expansion during the ‘Scramble for Africa.’ Mapping the territory and the very environmental conditions that determine such territory is a materialist and an economic practice, a form of appropriation of the natural world which preceded the territorial land grab. This presentation will ask how the agency of Spanish female expeditionaries to Africa sharpened, destabilized, or nuanced the edges of European imperialism. 

Benita Sampedro Vizcaya is Associate Professor of Colonial Studies at Hofstra University and  Associate Director, Center for "Race", Culture and Social Justice and Co-Director, Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Hofstra University.