Tucker Sharon, University of British Columbia

Geography Based Representation and a Lonely Travelers Narcissistic Musings: How Knowledge Becomes Power in the Chronicles of Manuel Iradier
The representational construct of a presupposed rift that slates Africa in opposition to Europe continually crops up among the discourses of justification that, in wave after wave, bolster projects of domination. And as long as the division has existed, so too has the confluence of subject and setting that makes Africa distinguishable by the traits of Africans and vice versa. This tendency, however, foments more farce than fact, as the quixotic actors of imperialism discursively subordinate their subjects in the service of their own narcissistic myopia. As Edward Said notes in Orientalism, representation and the knowledge that it entails are both inextricably linked with political, economic and social domination. In the production of knowledge reality is yielded to a manufactured version of things in which the object of such knowledge is inherently vulnerable to scrutiny ... . To have such knowledge of such a thing is to dominate it, to have authority over it. And authority here means for 'us' to deny autonomy to 'it'. (Said 32) It is my contention that Manuel Iradiers frica does exactly that: it fabricates an authority, entirely contingent upon access to, and ingenuity with, the written word, which then deprives the Other of her/his autonomy and threatens her/his very identity. This is achieved through both the imposition of manufactured traits and also the silencing of the Others constituitive voice. Furthermore, the product of this authority suffers a total lack of continuity, as it must succumb to the authorial whim of its pen-wielding master. In the waning years of Spains all-but-defunct colonial escapades, Manuel Iradier set This is a draft; please do not cite without permission.

Tucker Sharon, University of British Columbia out to satisfy his healthy personal ambition. An aficionado of geography from an early age, he hoped to someday parallel the prestige and reputation of David Livingstone, the iconic Scottish explorer who traveled central Africa during the 1850s and 1860s. With scarce funds, however, he settled on a trip to the Spanish-claimed territories of the Gulf of Guinea. (Iradier, 2000: 14-17) In 1875 he traveled around the Bay of Corisco and up the Ro Muni, coming into contact with the costal Ndowe peoples and the inland Fang. Perhaps ironically, eight years after this journey, the self-styled explorer, who as an adolescent had fought as a soldier defending Spains First Republic, would become the primary actor in the last episode of Spains colonial expansion. This time Iradier retraced his 1875 path, purchasing territory for nominal fees in the name of the Spanish crown. frica is the chronicle, told sometimes through vivid first-person prose and others with the bleak, pseudo-objective language of Anthropometry, that documents these two journeys. Much like the chronicles that drew analogies between the African continent and a seductive female form1, poeticizing an expansionist agenda of exploration and conquest (Comaroffs 694), Iradier discursively primed Ndowe and Fang territories for their eventual Spanish annexation by perpetuating a polarized subjectivity that posited the civilized European against the native African savage. This style of representation subordinated Africa and any African identity to the narcissistic notions of a Eurocentric self. And because of the way he commingled subjectivity with spatiality, geography became the defining force in Iradiers manufactured African identity. While making his way along the northern Gulf of Guinea, Iradier remarks on the

This is a draft; please do not cite without permission.

Tucker Sharon, University of British Columbia puntos negros que se movan (Iradier 2000: 46) among the sand, a telling picture that offers a glimpse into the creative subjectivity of Iradiers frica. For as he closes in on his prize, the territory of Spanish Guinea, he instills upon the blank slate of these puntos negros traits and characteristics dredged from depths of his own divided self, much like a painter transforms an empty canvass. As he wields his pen, all the men of the Kru ethnicities become los mejores braceros de toda la costa de frica ; (ibid 47) and in the territories he approaches
asquerosos insectos y reptiles que guardan en sus mandbulas traidor veneno se arrastran en gran nmero entre la yerba en que has de descansar un enimigo terrible, sin brazos, sin cuerpo, sin cabeza, invisible, impalpable, que sale de la tierra te atacar siempre que pueda. Penetrar por tu boca, entrar en tus pulmones, se filtrar en tu sangre t sentirs al principio un exceso de vida, tus funciones intelectuales sern ms amplias, ms completas, pero ah! Desconfa de esa truega que se te da: es el brillo esplendoroso de una ltima llama prxima a extinguirse. Vendr la reaccin y, tras de ella, la muerte. (52-53)2

By way of similar constructions, Iradier is able to posit his setting as a crossroads where land and identity become one, a point of intersection donde el agua salada est en mezcla con la dulce (47) Indeed, it is this nexus that allows him to present and sustain his coast-interior divide. In each case, what is delivered is a falsehood, a creation filtered through the emotions, ambitions and the agenda of the author, Manuel Iradier, all crafted in a manner that leaves the African subject muted. Take, for example, the case of Chief Eyabo White. On what amounted to a veritable

This is a draft; please do not cite without permission.

Tucker Sharon, University of British Columbia bill of sale, transferring Whites territory to the Spanish monarchy, Iradier notes:
Este jefe, que ha recorrido gran parte de la costa de frica, se neg a firmar el documento francs pretextando no saber escribir en testimonio de resistencia, pero firm y con buena letra en el documento espaol. (Iradier 1994: 692)

Through his representation of Whites wishes, Iradier sequesters a local chiefs action and inserts it into the verification of his own agenda. Chief Whites territory is made available for annexation through textthat is the documentand in case that proves insufficient, Iradier develops the credibility of his feat by ensuring any potential metropolitan audience that his Chief White is savvy enough to grasp the significance of a document and no one need question whether this mans territory has indeed been voluntarily ceded to the last remnants of a moribund empire. After all, the man is no fool; in a classic example of Saids subdivision of the Orient, Iradier puts any wary bureaucrats back home at ease by assuring that this chief is not one of those from far inland who doesnt understand European institutions, who might leave his signature in exchange for a few pesetas and then put up a fight when the buyer comes to collect on his purchase. Instead the chief represented by Iradier is well traveled, having recorrido gran parte de la costa de frica, (ibid) and he understands how trade is done. Here, where Chief White is transformed from person to personage, the slippery fusion/confusion of space and subject arises, enabling Iradier to validate his seller based on spatial terms. Saids distinction between the Near Orientfamiliar although nonetheless exoticand Far Orienta place of the mythical unknown(Said 58) undergoes a transferal that severs otherness into a subdivided fictionality; the Other presented by Iradier is now either one of los negros de la costa or one of los del This is a draft; please do not cite without permission.

Tucker Sharon, University of British Columbia interior.3 Spatiality then takes on the dimensions of rubric, so that a subjects geographic designation enables a simple, pseudo-scientific evaluation of her/his subjectivity, relying on a process of signification that assigns their representation certain traits ( x) based upon their corresponding territory (y). (Ibid 119) In one of many moments of self-reflection, the moral struggle that Iradier suffers as a contingent of exploring the unknown is revealed. At the doorstep to Spanish Guinea he froze in a fever of self-reproach, questioning the very intentions that had driven him this far, and only after the so-called triunfo de la razn (Iradier 2000: 54) is he able to convince himself of his own noble intentions and continue on. Yet this episode exposes Iradiers existential dilemma. Often times his dreaded adventurer steals the scientists spotlight and overwhelms the narrative with tales of Africas endless dangers and the heroism that overcame them. The representation that is made of the Other (his proposed object of study) is then substantially less complex and receives a smaller allotment of textual space than the elements that comprise his own subjectivity. In many cases, the traits of those he comes across in his travels are of such little consequence to him that their striking physical aspects are the only elements he deems worthy of occupying his prose (ibid: 49; 70; 133-134; 147). In fact, despite dedicating entire chapters of frica to different aspectseconomy, music, food, etc.of his African subject/object, he never successfully extracts himself from the study of the Other. This subject of enunciation-based representational paradigm takes its most succinct form in the sketches that intermittently punctuate Iradiers text. Figure one depicts the

This is a draft; please do not cite without permission.

Tucker Sharon, University of British Columbia ambush that awaited Iradier and his companions on their return from the upper Muni, the Utongo and the Utamboni rivers. On his trip up river (1875) Iradier insulted the Ulombe king, Gaandu, thus ensuring the attack that met his small convoy upon return. The account of events surrounding his ambush exemplifies the shining moments of Iradier as adventurer and the sketch that goes along with it concisely encapsulates the type of narrative that is constructed in frica. In the drawing, the principle protagonist and the narrative point of view are unmistakable. The drawing, as can clearly be seen, portrays the retreat of three indigenous subjects, all of whom the chosen perspective renders relatively insignificant, and who are fleeing the heroic advance of six others. (Heroic is, of course a subjective term, but based on the postures, stances, and the all-around sensation of being thrust toward the supposed enemy that these produce, one could assume that, at least within a Western representative vernacular, these six characters are the so-called good guys, the valiant ones.) Of the aggressors/good guys, four are clear representations of the locals as Iradier sees them: practically naked, wielding spears, and very dark-skinned; and two are dressed in European garb. Of the latter two, one stands out for his action, his compositional location and perhaps most obvious, the intensity of the light tones with which he is depicted. This figure is the only one clearly firing a pistol. Compositionally, he shares the center third of the frame with one indigenous subject carrying what appears to be the Spanish flag; this one, despite sharing center stage, is farther back and therefore smaller in appearance. Lastly, the images generally dark overtones are only significantly interrupted by the dissonant whiteness of the figure in the middle, even the other subject of European garb

This is a draft; please do not cite without permission.

Tucker Sharon, University of British Columbia is cast in shadow, conveniently folding him into the drawings overall tendency toward darkness. It goes without saying that this hero, basking in the spotlight of center stage, is Manuel Iradier. Of slightly more interest is the other European subject, for he stands as a testament to the process of signification that endows geography based representations with their meaning. This figure, Makoko,4 surprised Iradier at their first meeting, upsetting his already entrenched views of the locals, as he had never seen un africano tan fino so far from the beach (139). Makoko, and more particularly his textual and graphic re-presence illustrates the tight elasticity of a representations grip on reality in that, although Makoko comes from farther inland, he is immediately raised beyond the status of Elombuangani in the way he is introduced in the text wearing European clothes and speaking English. And his position as an honorary Europeantruly the embodiment of Bhabhaian mimicry, he is close in stature, close in dress, close in action, but not quite the same toneis solidified in Iradiers graphic portrayal of the man in his drawing. Yet Makoko is not treated as an anomaly. Despite the fact that his origins defy the inland/coast representational paradigm (which stipulates that all those from the coast are more European in their ways), he is logically inserted into the coast category based on the extensive time he spent trading there with the English. As such, his textual persona hovers in the uncertain grey area of the noble savage. If taken as a whole this sketch presents a telling conundrum: locals are battling locals thanks to Iradiers presence. Yet interestingly, were Iradier to be removed entirely from the image, the narrative it constructs would not be fundamentally altered; it would still

This is a draft; please do not cite without permission.

Tucker Sharon, University of British Columbia tell a story of Africans fighting Africans. Moreover, the chosen perspective is not one that renders the Other on a similar narrative plain; Iradier prefers instead to wantonly vacillate between the non-intrusive scientific observer and the heroic adventurer, both of whom supposedly stumble upon uniquely African phenomena without in any way altering their course or constitution, thereby maintaining the degree of separation necessary to present himself within a distinct representational sphere. In this sense frica perfectly embodies the divide-and-conquer function of geography based representation when used as part of imperial discourses.5 In order that the opposition of Africa to Europe be maintained, it then undergoes a subdivision of near Orientthe coastand far Orientthe hinterland which allows the resulting narrative to be perceived and portrayed as an African struggle: a battle between good incarnate (which fights under a Spanish flag) and barbarous savagery, in which the European merely plays the hero at center stage. The onus of battling for good Spanish civilization is then transferred to the noble savage and Iradier stands inaccessible to the smaller, darker natives mired in their simple internal struggles. The banishment of his African subject to the shadows, where they do little more than reflect the void opposite Iradiers narcissism, may in and of itself be written off as the unfortunate consequence of a lonely travelers delusions of grandeur. But when seen as part of a larger discursive whole,6 frica comes to personify a representational structure of repression. Iradiers portrayal of the Other using himself as the point of reference subordinates them to his own subjectivity. Moreover, in the schism fomented by his geographical division between coast and interior, and the evoking of the noble

This is a draft; please do not cite without permission.

Tucker Sharon, University of British Columbia savage myth, he severs that Other into two conflicting camps, both contrasting with one another based on their perceived proximity to him. frica then is the narration of what occurs in the life of Manuel Iradier: the interesting encounter with a buffalo; the tense leopard episode; his sickness; the battle with King Gaandus men. It is what Iradier thinks, what he feels, what he fears. The Africans he studies, and indeed Africa as a whole, are mere outcroppings of this. However, this is no lone instance of authorial hegemony, it fits into the larger matrix of imperial mechanisms. Said effectively argues that the Comte de Volneys search for and manufacture of knowledge primed Egypt for an imminent Napoleonic invasion. Indeed the same could be said of the Conquest chronicles, in which Spanish monarchs were enticed with reports of luscious, mythical El Dorado, populated by docile, easily subdued masses ripe for exploiting. The textual re-presences of Corts, Columbus, the Comte de Volney and others fueled the fires of imperial expansion at its very heights. Their chronicles prepped territories for the taking and their readers happily indulged. And Iradiers frica is no exception with respect to this role. Where frica uniquely attests to the effectiveness of textually silencing and subordinating the Other is in the fact that despite operating in the last throes of a decaying empire, and despite offering an ambivalent representation of the Other based on his own existential angst, it was still able to fulfill this function of laying groundwork for future occupation. With the bulk of her American territories now long since lost, and suffering from the blows of a third Carlist War, the Spain that Iradier exalted was far from the rising world power that Columbus served and categorically different from the dominating empire that Corts nourished. Yet

This is a draft; please do not cite without permission.

Tucker Sharon, University of British Columbia his representations nonetheless conditioned a mentality that would eventually have him returning to claim land for Spain, for less than ten years after his initial expedition Iradier was commissioned to return and purchase the territories he had previously explored. In this sense, Manuel Iradiers work, with its representational subjection and physical annexation, embodies the Saidian transition from text to territory, knowledge to power.

This is a draft; please do not cite without permission.

1 2

Of course, this was a common trope seen in the Spanish colonial representations of the Americas, as well. While this quote does represent one of the valuable moments of self-awareness in Iradiers text, showing that he acknowledges the preconceptions he is bringing to his work, it nonetheless demonstrates the incipient construction of his Saidian orient. 3 Where the coast ends and the interior begins is, of course, a blurry transition, as the terms adhere more closely to the known and unknown than they do to any concrete geographical coordinates. This is a distinction that is always in flux as Iradier continues on with his exploration. He also uses these distinctions as interchangeable with friend/foe, as is manifest in his constant praise of the loyal Elombuangani against a general repulsion expressed for those they meet as they go up the Muni river. Civilized/barbarous; (115) and hard-working/lazy (75) are also frequent substitutions for the coast-inland binary. 4 The only other Europeans that Iradier traveled with were his wife and child, both of whom he left in the relative comfort of Coriscoa small island at the mouth of the Muni River, in the Bay of Corisco. The only one of Iradiers servants that this may be a reflection of would be Makoko. 5 Consider Corts elation at finding that those he was to conquer were already at odds amongst themselves: Vista la discordia y desconformidad de los unos y de los otros, no hube poco placer, porque me pareci hacer mucho a mi propsito, y que podra tener manera de ms ana sojuzgarlos ... aun acordme de una autoridad evanglica que dice: Omne regnum in se ipsum divisum, desolabitur [Vulgata, Lucas 11.17]; Having seen the discord and disconformity between one another, I was more than slightly pleased, because it seemed to me to do much for my purpose, and that it could have a way of easily subjugating them I was even reminded of the evangelical dictum that says: Omne regnum in se ipsum divisum, desolabitur. (Corts 42) 6 Gustau Nerns first chapter, Espaa Un colonialismo light?, offers a detailed and convincing analysis of the discursive make-up of Spains colonial project in Spanish Guinea. For more see Nern (11-59).

Bibliography Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. New York: Routledge, 1994. Columbus, Cristopher. Los cuatro viajes. Testamento. Consuelo Varela, ed. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1986. Comaroff, Jean and John. Africa Observed: Discourses of the Imperial Imagination. Perspectives on Africa: A Reader in Culture, History, and Representation. Grinker, Roy R., and Christopher B. Steiner, eds. Malden: Blackwell, 1998. Corts, Hernn. Cartas de relacin. Mxico: Editorial Porra, S.A., 1993. Iradier, Manuel. frica: viajes y trabajos de la Asociacin Eskara La Exploradora. Madrid: Ediciones Polifemo, 1994. . frica. Ed. Ramn Jimnez Fraile. Barcelona: Mondadori, S.A., 2000. Nern, Gustau. Guinea Ecuatorial, historia en blanco y negro: hombres blancos y mujeres negros en Guinea Ecuatorial (1843-1968). Barcelona: Ediciones Pennsula, 1998. Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1978.

Figure 1.

Source: Iradier, Manuel. frica: viajes y trabajos de la Asociacin Eskara La Exploradora. Madrid: Ediciones Polifemo, 1994. 225.