The study of color has acquired an increasingly relevant place in research on the indigenous societies of the Americas. Far from conceiving it solely as a visual quality, recent approaches address colors as materials, practices, forms of knowledge, categories and cultural experiences capable of shedding new light on multiple dimensions of these societies, including cosmologies, ritual practices, social hierarchies, artistic production, technologies and economies. Despite this notable development, research remains largely confined to certain regions, temporalities, cultural traditions and specific categories of objects. Comparative dialogue among specialists from different American areas remains relatively scarce, making it difficult to recognize both the convergences and the diversity of indigenous conceptions of color.
This symposium proposes to open this space for inter-American discussion, inviting the academic community to present research dedicated to the study of color in any indigenous society of the American continent, from the pre-Hispanic era to the present. Papers addressing the material, technical, sensory, linguistic, aesthetic and symbolic dimensions of color are welcome, drawing on history, art history, archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, conservation and archaeometry, among other disciplines. Contributions integrating interdisciplinary methods that allow for the construction of new approaches and the opening of new questions around color are equally encouraged.
The symposium will seek, in particular, to reflect on broader issues related to the agency of coloring materials, the sensory dimension of chromatic experience, the links between color, brightness and materiality, as well as the historical processes of continuity, transformation and exchange of knowledge about color in indigenous societies. By bringing together specialists from various regions of the Americas, this symposium aims to help consolidate the study of color as a comparative field of research, capable of renewing our understanding of indigenous cultures and putting into dialogue academic traditions that, until now, have evolved in parallel.
