Re-reading Maipina de la Barra: scientific observations in the first travel narrative by a Chilean woman

ABSTRACT This article presents a re-reading of the Chilean Maipina de la Barra’s travel memoir Mis impresiones y mis vicisitudes en mi viaje a Europa, which was published in Buenos Aires in 1878. Whereas previous interpretations have read it as personal testimony and feminine revindication, this article shows how her memoir can also be read as field note observation and scientific divulgation. The theoretical framework is based on the history of science and knowledge and therefore offers a unique angle for studying the writing of a nineteenth-century woman who resided in a peripheral area of the world, far removed from the major centres of scientific advancement.