From Natural History to Post-Revolutionary Politics? A Scientific Expedition for the New Republic of Bolivia (1830-1834)
Résumé
The scientific expedition led by Alcide d’Orbigny in South America (1826-1834) is best known for recording numerous new species and producing an exhaustive ethnological study of the sub-continent’s indigenous peoples. However, this expedition has not yet been understood in the wider political context of the "Age of Revolutions". By focusing on the Bolivian section of Alcide d’Orbigny’s travels, this paper seeks to understand how the political agenda of a new Hispano-American republic met the scientific agenda of a French naturalist travelling for the Museum of Paris. Examining the cooperation between Alcide d’Orbigny and Andrés de Santa Cruz, the President of Bolivia, I argue that this time of imperial reconfigurations challenged the classical center-periphery narrative. In this case, the new epistemology of natural history - a temporalized and spatialized science - served a post-revolutionary project that sought to define and "regenerate" the Bolivian Republic, its territory, and its people. While he kept on collecting for the Paris Museum, the French naturalist used his scientific expertise to back a South American political project that was typical of the post-independence era: that of internal colonialism. Finally, the paper examines the crucial role played by the many actors who accompanied d’Orbigny in his Bolivian itineraries and made the production of this knowledge possible in the field, ranging from missionaries to indigenous savants, carpenters, Bolivian students, guides, and interpreters.