Natalia Gándara Chacana

Natalia Gándara is interested in the scientific, cultural and intellectual history of Latin America in the colonial and early republican period. Her thesis explores the geographical imagination, and the transfer of knowledge about the Chilean sea from the mid-18th to the mid-19th century. Her research touches on a broad range of topics including change and continuity in the geographical imagination; the production, circulation and transfer of knowledge; the institutionalisation and specialisation of science at this period; and empire-building and state formation in Latin America.

Natalia's research is funded by a 'Becas Chile' scholarship, awarded by the Chilean government's National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research.

PhD

Supervisor: Nicola Miller
Working title: 'Imperial and republican images of the Chilean Sea, from the mid-18th century to the mid-19th century'
Expected completion date: 2020

Publications

• Gándara, Natalia. "Cartografía textual de Ambrosio O ́Higgins. La valoración geográfica del reino de Chile en su proyecto de 1767". Accepted in Historia 396, 2017. 
• Gándara, Natalia. "Representaciones de un territorio. La frontera mapuche en los proyectos ilustrados del reino de Chile en la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII", Revista Historia Crítica, N°59, 2016, pp. 61-80.
• Gándara, Natalia. "Los orígenes industriales y comerciales de la Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (1928-1937)" en Desafíos de la Universidad en los albores del siglo XX, Valparaíso: USM editores, 2016, pp. 141-155. 
• Gándara, Natalia. "Reflexiones sobre la Historia sociocultural del cuerpo a partir del concepto braudeliano de civilización material", Raíces de Expresión, N°10, Valparaíso, 2013, pp. 13-21.

Conference papers and presentations

• "Geographies of knowledge. The Chilean Sea in the second half of the 18th century", Cross-disciplinary approaches to the study of knowledge-making in the early modern world (1450-1800), Dr Williams Library, supported by London Arts & Humanities Partnership (LAHP), October 2017. 
• "Nature, knowledge and the Geographical Imagination of the Chilean Sea, from mid-18th century to mid-19th century", Nature's Past: Historical Perspectives on a Contested Concept, UCL History postgraduate conference, UCL, June 2017. 
• "Descripción y Silencio. La construcción discursiva del espacio fronterizo mapuche en el proyecto de expansión colonial y representación cartográfica de Ambrosio O´Higgins (1767)" ["Description and Silence. The discursive construction of the Mapuche Frontier in the Project and Map of Ambrosio O´Higgins (1767)"], Ninth International Congress of Ethno-history, Arica, Chile, November 2014.
• "La construcción discursiva del espacio fronterizo mapuche y sus sujetos en los proyectos ilustrados del padre Villarreal y de José Perfecto de Salas. 1740-1766", ["The discursive construction of the Mapuche Frontier and its inhabitants in the projects of father Villarreal and Jose Perfecto de Salas. 1740-1766"], Ninth International Congress of History of the Iberian Monarchies, Lima, Peru, November 2013.

Conference organisation

• Organising committee, Nature's Past: Historical Perspectives on a Contested Concept, UCL History postgraduate conference, June 2017.

Teaching 2018-19 (postgraduate teaching assistant)

• History of Latin America, c.1830-c.1930