Abstract
In the vast geographical, historical, cultural, and political space that we call Latin America, cartography and utopia have always gone hand in hand. In fact, the beginnings of this vast space could be told in a new myth of origins that would narrate the story of a visionary navigator who, guided by the logic of desire, would gradually displace the outlines and measurements of an unknown world by the seductive images and configurations of an imaginary one. This narrative of origins would accurately illuminate the central and irreducible presence of the utopian impulse in the New World as a driving force behind the dynamics of discovery, creation, and transformation that have shaped Latin America.
A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not even worth glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing.
—Oscar Wilde, “The Soul of Man under Socialism”
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© 2011 Kim Beauchesne and Alessandra Santos
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Pastor, B. (2011). Utopia in Latin America. In: Beauchesne, K., Santos, A. (eds) The Utopian Impulse in Latin America. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230339613_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230339613_2
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