Expectations and realities: floating exhibition’s agencies of the Regia Nave Italia in Cartagena de Indias, 1924

Abstract

The Regia Nave Italia was a trip organized by the Italian government of 1924, sponsored by Benito Mussolini and Gabriele D’Annunzio, destined to different Latin American ports, like a floating exhibition. One of the ports visited was Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, in September. This research aims to present the reader new archival information about the experiences of Colombians about the floating exhibition, creating a reconstruction of the facts with a historical and anthropological perspective. It also aims to contribute to the historiography of the ship, due to the concentration of the analysis of Italian documentation; this essay presents the Latin American perspective of the nave Italia experience. The research also presents to researchers of floating exhibitions an information about the adaptation of a boat for a fair. This exploratory article aims to contribute to the analysis of historical sources in combination with anthropological fieldwork, through a mapping of agencies, below the theoretical framework of the Actor-Network Theory (ANT).