Santiago Muñoz Arbelaez
I work on colonial Latin American history. I received a B.A. and M.A. in History from the Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá. After a very short experience as a High School teacher, I spent some time working on exhibitions and cultural projects at the Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango (Colombia's largest library system) and as graduate studies coordinator of the history department at Universidad de los Andes.
At Yale I am currently doing course work. My dissertation project intends to study how the circulation of certain commodities between 1550 and 1700, such as silver, salt, and textiles, speaks of cultural contact and power relations between indigenous, African, and Spanish groups in the New Kingdom of Granada (present day Colombia). I am particularly interested in the cultural negotiations involved in the everyday workings of colonial institutions and labor systems. I am also concerned with the ways in which Andean preconquest economic networks were resignified and articulated into transatlantic economies and in which Old World animals, plants and products were appropriated in local contexts and integrated into native economies. In short, my dissertation seeks to articulate economic and cultural history in ways that reveal the middle ground of alliances, conflicts and negotiations between native economies, slave populations and imperial systems.
Previous research includes explorations on the interactions between "encomenderos" and Muisca Indians in sixteenth century New Kingdom of Granada; history of cartography in eighteenth century Santa Marta (New Granada) and, more generally, on the forging of Colombia's map; featherwork in sixteenth century New Spain; and travel images in nineteenth century Colombia.
I work with Stuart B. Schwartz and Gilbert M. Joseph. Please email me with any questions.
Selected publications:
- Ensamblando la nación: cartografía y política en la historia de Colombia, Bogotá, Ediciones Uniandes, Banco de la República, 2010. (Exhibition catalog; with Mauricio Nieto and Sebastián Díaz).
- “Geographies of the Name: Naming Practices among the Muisca and Páez of the Audiencias of Santafé and Quito, 16th and 17th Centuries”, in Journal of Latin American Geography, Special Issue: Negotiating Spanish American Landscapes, forthcoming in 2012. (With Marta Herrera and Santiago Paredes)
- “‘Medir y amojonar’: La cartografía y la producción del espacio colonial en la Provincia de Santa Marta, siglo XVIII”, in Historia Crítica, No. 34, July-December 2007, pp. 208-231.
http://historiacritica.uniandes.edu.co/datos/pdf/data/H_Critica_34/11_tema_abierto3.pdf
- “Las imágenes de viajeros en el siglo XIX. El caso de los grabados de Charles Saffray sobre Colombia”, Historia y Grafía, No. 34, 2010.
- “El ‘Arte Plumario’ y sus múltiples dimensiones de significación. La Misa de San Gregorio, Virreinato de la Nueva España, 1539”, in Historia Crítica, Dossier: Las nuevas generaciones y la Historia Colonial, No. 31, enero-junio 2006, pp. 121 – 149.
http://historiacritica.uniandes.edu.co/view.php/275/1.php
