Discurso geográfico, representaciones culturales y publicaciones impresas. El Atlas metódico de Antonio García Cubas y el contexto escolar mexicano, 1867-1880

Abstract

This research work is a study of Atlas metódico para la enseñanza de la geografía de la República mexicana, prepared by Antonio Garcia Cubas and published in 1874. The work is structured in two lines. The first is about the representations and discourses that the atlas has, based on the premise that all cartographic works are sociocultural products, rather than an objective and faithful portrait of spatial reality. The second line is the link between the content of the atlas and the historical context in which it emerged: that is the emergence of the public instruction system, orchestrated by the liberal state as a result of the affirmation of its nation project. In that tenor, the idea of visualizing and spreading the cartographic image of the Mexican nation acquired a specific meaning. Therefore, I try to give an account of how the atlas (in tune with other school books of period), sought to systematize and visualize an idea of spatial order anchored in the limits of the nation state, as well as in the foundations of a geographical knowledge of that time.