Geografía del género y los espacios de encuentro colonial : una nueva mirada a las narrativas de viaje

Travel books and narratives constitute a rich source for the understanding of Europe's intellectual appropriation of the Orient, as both an integral part and the result of the vast process known as colonialism in which geography was so deeply involved. In particular, I wish to recover the narratives of female travelers and explorers, who also constitute the basis of the training in our discipline. This text is divided into three sections: the first reviews the critical reception of Edward Said's views on Orientalism and "Otherness". The second focuses on two female European travelers in the Arab world at the beginning of the 20th century, Gertrude Bell and Isabelle Eberhardt. These two women were selected since they embody very different ways of coping with the Otherness that the world of Islam represented for Europe at the time.