European variations in the vision of the other: a contrastive study about otherness in Antonio de Berrío and Walter Ralegh

Abstract

This research study results from the conviction that, within the broad Europeanising and imperialist vision from which the European colonial subject represents American otherness, there are a number of considerable political, economic, cultural or religious differences between the visions of those explorers coming from different European countries. From this conviction, a contrastive analysis of otherness in the chronicles of Antonio de Berrío and Walter Ralegh, who made contact with the same native societies in Orinoco and Guiana during the same period of time (last decades of the 16th century), stands as a paradigmatic case study which may be the basis for new research works about intra-European constructions of otherness.