PERIPHERIES AND MARGINALITIES. REPRESENTATIONS, CLASSIFICATION AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL ORDER IN COLONIAL INDIGENOUS SOCIETIES OF LATIN AMERICA (16TH-17TH CENTURIES)
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the indigenous societies of colonial America (with some exceptions) underwent a kind of centrifugal movement, out of which concentric circles were formed. Within them, relations of power, reflected in gender, ethnicity, politics and economics, determined proximity to or distance from the center. Thus, peripheries served as an instrument for classifying people, and through these judgments the ideas surrounding what was dangerous, unworthy, or deviant became consolidated.
This panel aims to bring together papers devoted to the analysis of these “peripheral figures” in indigenous societies — the poor, prostitutes, enslaved persons, outsiders, ritual specialists, those accused of idolatry or witchcraft, orphans, the sick, etc. — with the aim of gaining a deeper understanding of the construction of narratives of social and colonial order.
Although many of these actors appear recurrently in the sources and in historiography, they rarely constitute the primary object of analysis. This panel proposes to rethink them as historical categories whose definition makes it possible to understand the ways in which colonial indigenous societies established the boundaries of difference and belonging. The fragmentary nature of the sources has made it difficult to reconstruct the trajectories of many of these historical subjects, who frequently appear subordinated to broader issues. One of the aims of this panel is to serve as a forum for sharing working experiences regarding the problems, possibilities and limitations of colonial sources. The comparative approach among Latin American cases privileges the search for patterns, continuities, ruptures and particularities.
This panel also seeks to open a space for discussion on the possibilities and limits offered by colonial sources for approaching these dynamics, understanding that such sources were themselves part of the mechanisms through which these categories were constructed, defined and disseminated. We will accept papers proposing new readings of historical sources, as well as research based on documents written in indigenous languages and on critical translations.
Studying marginalities helps us understand how the historical production of difference constituted a fundamental mechanism for organizing indigenous societies during the colonial period, and what implications these representations had for shaping communities, social dynamics, and the everyday forms of exercising power — political, economic, religious, ethnic and gender-based.
Finally, we believe that a space of this nature will not only allow for the exchange of diverse points of view and novel readings, but will also help us understand the evolution of indigenous communities across Latin American territory. While this does not imply historical invariability, it will serve as a small window through which to observe the marks left by the colonial order.
