ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the relationship between disorientation and the construction of the "other" in relation to space. Disorientation is the characteristic condition of these "dissonant bodies" and "one of the processes that bring to the fore the space-invader status of racialized bodies in privileged occupational positions. It is revealing of how specific bodies have been constructed out of the imagination of authority. Travel reports facilitate symbolic appropriation of colonial space and its inhabitants; behind the ambivalent construction of the "savage", lurks the ideology of colonial discourse. For decades, travellers to all regions of the colonial world continued to report instances of the infallible instinct or sense of direction of indigenous peoples, while systematically ignoring numerous instances of loss of direction on the part of local guides. Instinct as an explanation for human and non-human behaviours was a key theme within the nineteenth-century scientific debate.
