Global Ethnohistory?: Indigenous Agency in the Imperial Fluxes of Colonial Latin America

Abstract

The historiographical turn to the global has tended to eclipse the analysis of local dynamics and processes. In this context, indigenous agency as a central interest of ethnohistory and historical anthropology needs to be rethought. This article proposes a historiographical revision of some of the main topics which the ethnohistory of colonial Latin America, both as a concept and a methodology, has dealt with. The first part examines the debates on native regimes of historicity against the background of European expansion. The second part focuses on the recent shift of imperial history towards a decentered perspective on power relations and borderlands. The third and final part identifies some recent attempts to put indigenous strategies in dialogue with global circulations of people, texts, and objects.