Latin American history and culture

Colonial Spanish America produced a visual and performative culture shaped by the collision and negotiation of Indigenous, European, and African traditions, leaving behind manuscripts, altarpieces, theatrical rituals, and legal documents that scholars read as evidence of how people constructed identity under conditions of conquest and conversion. Researchers working in this area examine how ethnic categories were made and contested through images and performance, how religious imagery carried meanings that differed across communities, and how colonial language policies shaped what could be said, recorded, or remembered. Open questions include how Indigenous artists and performers exercised agency within—and sometimes against—colonial frameworks, and how early modern legal cultures intersected with visual representation to define rights, belonging, and memory. Ongoing work in postcolonial and decolonial approaches continues to recover Mesoamerican and Andean perspectives that were long subordinated to European archival sources.

Works

114,840

Total citations

335,475

Keywords

Colonial Spanish AmericaVisual CultureIndigenous HistoryCultural ExchangeEthnic IdentitiesReligious Practices