Conceptos espaciales en el Río de la Plata a finales del siglo XVIII y comienzos del XIX: tierras, terrenos, territorios y dominios

Abstract

In the Western world, between the middle of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, there was a change in the designation of the area of development of a political community, which went from an idea of a monarch's “domains” to the idea of the “territory” that belonged to a State or Nation, regardless of its form of government. During that process, the word "territory" ceased to be associated only with the area of jurisdiction of a city, bishopric or specific authority. The Río de la Plata region, an area of jurisdictional disputes between both Iberian monarchies, may be seen as a laboratory for semantic exchanges of the word territory and a cluster of words associated with space –lands, terrains and domains– in a significant conceptual dynamic that is revealed in the analysis of sources such as dictionaries, treaties, memoirs, newspapers and petitions from subjects, all produced by different actors who were part of the lettered culture of the time.