Constelaciones del indigenismo: la participación indígena en el debate intelectual y político del indigenismo continental (1920-1940) 
 

El presente proyecto tiene por objetivo analizar los repertorios de participación indígena en las redes transnacionales del indigenismo entre 1920 y 1940.  

Durante los años veinte y treinta del siglo XX un conjunto de fuerzas políticas, sociales e intelectuales impulsaron a nivel regional y local el proceso de institucionalización del indigenismo y su reorientación de una preocupación nacional a una continental, materializada en la celebración del Primero Congreso Indigenista Interamericano en 1940. Para este proyecto interesa dar cuenta del repertorio de experiencias de participación de actores, grupos y organizaciones indígenas en los circuitos intelectuales y políticos que nutrieron la conformación del indigenismo interamericano. Para ello, se analizarán algunas experiencias de México, Perú, Guatemala y Chile con el objetivo de ofrecer una mirada de contraste sobre expresiones particulares de participación, pero también para identificar los elementos de convergencia en la corriente interamericana. 

Modernismo Andino: Unflattening the Histories of Latin American Art  

​

My research project offers a historical revision of indigenismo and the rise of abstraction in Ecuador Perú and Bolivia, in a time when ideas of development and progress were being advanced through extractive industries. Artistic modernity constructed a visuality based on ideas of progress, development, and modernization. In the late 19th century, in the Andes, landscape art shaped ideas of nation and territory. In the early 20th century, the indigenous subjects were presented as the soil of that nation and as exploited labor force. What lies behind these tropes is the fact that those ideas of progress were, and always are, based in extractive industries. While indigenismo coincided with a period when Indigenous peoples were organizing their first political movements and local economies were predominantly agricultural, a type of abstraction named precolombinismo or ancestralismo emerged in the 1950s within a context shaped by the rise of oil industries and their profound social and environmental impacts. In these artistic trends, mestizo creativity drew upon ideas, materials, and histories sourced from Indigenous communities, expressed through both figurative and abstract styles. Each dissertation chapter examines the interplay of modern art, labor movements, and extractive industries. This perspective, which considers tensions between indigeneity and mestizaje, racism and erasure, and extractivism and plunder, deepens understanding of contemporary social fractures and possibilities for reparation.  

La violencia sexual en la historia latinoamericana. Seducción, estupro y violación a mujeres menores de edad en Cochabamba-Bolivia en los años 1867 a 1940 
​

Esta investigación propone un estudio histórico crítico sobre la violencia sexual contra mujeres jóvenes y solteras en Cochabamba - Bolivia entre 1867 y 1940, analizando cómo el sistema judicial no solo reguló, sino que reprodujo estas violencias al priorizar el honor familiar sobre los derechos de las víctimas. Partiendo de un enfoque interseccional que considera género, clase y raza, el proyecto examinará expedientes judiciales del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia de Cochabamba, para revelar los mecanismos patriarcales de control, las estructuras de impunidad y las posibles estrategias de resistencia femenina presentes en estos casos. El trabajo combina metodologías de historia social y de género, incluyendo el análisis crítico de narrativas judiciales, la reconstrucción de casos emblemáticos y el diálogo con marcos teóricos sobre agencia femenina y estructuras coloniales de poder.  

International Lawmaking in an Imperial Age: The Emergence of the Latin American Mixed Claims Commission (1828-1864) 

​

During the 19th century, Latin America became a key site for the development of a new international legal phenomenon: the mixed claims commission. These commissions were an early form of international arbitration: institutions in which representatives from states judged claims brought by foreign nationals from one state against another. In this research project, I explore the political dynamics behind this legal phenomenon. That entails uncovering how diplomats and politicians grappled with historical notions of international law and justice, and how they applied these notions in practice. In doing so, this research not only offers new insights into the Latin American mixed claims commission itself, but also into the broader historical processes of international lawmaking and the impact of imperial and anti-imperial forces in shaping international law. 

¿Del caos al orden? Los primeros años del gobierno de la Real Audiencia en la configuración de Nueva España, 1528-1535  

Mi investigación examina los años fundacionales de la Real Audiencia de Nueva España en un período marcado por equilibrios inestables, conquistas inacabadas e intereses encontrados. La propuesta explora la creación y gestión inicial de la Audiencia tomando en cuenta distintos niveles de poder: en primer lugar, la Corona; en otro sentido, el entramado de corporaciones que mediaron entre Rey y súbditos y, finalmente, las numerosas trayectorias locales que se entretejieron en el ejercicio de gobernar. Con ello, el proyecto investiga las posibilidades, realidades e improntas de las acciones asociadas a este cuerpo político, tanto en la configuración territorial de Nueva España como en su integración a la Monarquía Hispánica. Con ello, el trabajo indaga en las bases mismas de un reino en ciernes.  

A league of their own: Women diplomats in the League of Nations’ fight against sex trafficking (1921-1945) 

​

Paulina Luisi (1875-1950) was one of the most important feminists in Uruguay, and she was also held in high esteem within the Pan-American and transnational women’s movement. As Uruguay’s first woman doctor, influential educator and socialist, Luisi’s life and work has been studied by historians. However, what has thus far received little attention is her work as a diplomat at the League of Nations. The League of Nations was the predecessor to the United Nations and it revolutionarily opened all its positions to women. Although few women were actually appointed, Paulina Luisi was selected to represent Uruguay at the League’s committee to fight sex trafficking, as well as at the International Labour Organisation, and was part of the Uruguayan delegation to the disarmament conference. 

This research project focusses on the League’s fight against sex trafficking, in which Luisi was the only Latin-American representative. Seeing as Latin-America was believed to be an important destination for trafficking, Luisi came under heavy scrutiny in Geneva, where the meetings of the League were held. In order to hold her own, Luisi relied on a network of women, as well as the Pan-American and Hispanic groups she belonged to. Her cooperation with these networks was challenged over time, for instance with the rise of fascism, which she strongly opposed. At the League, Luisi was marginalised and influential, appreciated and criticised, critical of others and eager to cooperate, all at the same time. 

Emma Post is a PhD candidate at the Department of History at the University of Amsterdam, supervised by prof. dr. Elizabeth Buettner and dr. Katy Hull. She specialises in gender, the League of Nations and the interwar period. Her NWO-funded research project ‘A League of their own’ focusses on eight women who served as diplomats in the League of Nations. Using a group biography, she researches their work in the fight against sex trafficking, and their group dynamics. Thanks to the support of the Slicher van Bath de Jong Foundation for the advancement of study and research on the history of Latin America, she is able to visit Geneva to advance her research. 

Beyond the Junta: Legal Mobilities and Black Women’s Claims to Justice in Post-Emancipation Cuba 

 

The project Beyond the Junta: Legal Mobilities and Black Women’s Claims to Justice in Post-Emancipation Cuba investigates how Black women in late 19th-century Cuba accessed justice beyond the limited framework of the juntas de patronato. While the juntas oversaw the application of the patronato law following the formal abolition of slavery in 1880, they lacked the authority to grant reparations or enforce financial claims. Building on previous research into women’s petitions to the juntas, this new phase focuses on two underexplored judicial arenas: the Audiencias (civil courts) and Escribanías (notarial offices) in Havana. 

By examining court proceedings and notarial acts, the project reconstructs how formerly enslaved women pursued compensation for abuse, claimed unpaid wages, and formalised their legal status. These sources reveal everyday legal mobilities and the mediating role of clerks, scribes, and notaries in shaping women's access to justice. The research contributes to a deeper understanding of how racialised and gendered forms of unfreedom persisted—and were actively contested—after formal emancipation. The Slicher van Bath-de Jong Foundation scholarship supports a three-month research stay at the Cuban National Archives to collect and analyse these overlooked sources. 

Sailing a Hidden Atlantic: Slave Ship Crews during the Age of Abolition (1810–1850) 
 

This project investigates the experiences of slave ship crews operating under the Portuguese and Brazilian flags between 1810 and 1850 – a critical period marked by international efforts to suppress the transatlantic slave trade.  

Although the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade has been extensively researched, the experiences of those who kept it operational at sea remain largely overlooked. Historians have often emphasized British-led initiatives in the North Atlantic, focusing on diplomacy, law, and naval suppression, while the maritime labor that sustained the trade — particularly in the South Atlantic — has received far less attention. This project shifts the lens to whose roles are key to understanding not only the resilience of the trade, but also the social and legal transformations that accompanied its gradual dismantling in Brazil, one of its last and most enduring branches. 

By reconstructing the social, geographic, and legal profiles of these crews, the project sheds light on their working conditions, their encounters with multiple legal systems, and their responses to abolitionist repression. It argues that these maritime laborers were not passive participants but historical agents who engaged with — and at times resisted — the legal and normative orders imposed upon them. In doing so, the project contributes to the historiography of slavery and abolition by foregrounding the human dimensions of repression and situating Brazil within the broader transnational dynamics of the Atlantic world. The Slicher van Bath-de Jong Foundation scholarship will cover a dedicated research period at The National Archives in London, focusing on records of slave trade repression.

Colonization, Afro-descendants, and Border Disputes in the Gulf of Honduras (1821–1854) 
 

This research project explores the role of Afro-descendant and Indigenous populations in shaping the geopolitical and social dynamics of the Gulf of Honduras during the long nineteenth century. In the wake of intensifying Anglo-Spanish disputes in the late eighteenth century, and later during the formation of the Central American republics, Black and Indigenous actors were central to territorial contestation and frontier-making. Their presence and mobility across key sites—such as the Mosquito Coast, the Bay Islands, and the British settlements in southern Yucatán—challenged elite visions of sovereignty and settlement in the region. 

Focusing on the post-independence period, the project investigates how liberal elites promoted coastal colonization through land concessions to foreign companies and racialized labor regimes, often resulting in the dispossession and displacement of local communities. Simultaneously, Afro-descendant populations—such as the Garinagu, freed Africans, and Miskitos—actively shaped these territories through migration, resistance, and strategic settlement. These “bottom-up” mobilities played a fundamental role in asserting or contesting republican authority, often in opposition to state-driven or imperial projects. 

Building on my doctoral research on the forced exile of the Garinagu from Saint Vincent and their settlement in Central America, this project expands both temporally and geographically to trace the emergence of conflicting models of coastal territorialization. By comparing elite colonization plans with subaltern strategies of survival and resistance, the project seeks to uncover the historical roots of contemporary struggles around forced migration, resource extraction, and racialized land appropriation along the Caribbean coast of Central America. Archival research across multiple countries will support this analysis.