In honor of the centennial of the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, the 2022 Lozano Long Conference initiated a conversation on archives with Latin American perspectives and practices. The conference took place on February 24-25. Archives, broadly speaking, are sites where the collection, organization, and processing of documents and objects have preserved memories or silenced pasts. Archives also serve as repositories of knowledge and spaces of interpretation where we can uncover and reshape past and present power relations. The Benson Latin American Collection at The University of Texas at Austin offers a unique archival vantage point to study the colonial, republican, and modern histories of Latin America and the Caribbean. From that platform, this interdisciplinary conference explored evolving practices, philosophies, and politics of archival work; identified ways to improve access to cultural heritage; and fomented community engagement and empowerment. The conference brought together leading and up-and-coming scholars, archivists, social activists, and digital humanities practitioners. In assembling this diverse group, the organizers sought to strengthen archival networks while also activating dialogues between and among U.S., Iberian, and Latin American academic communities working on and with archival materials. While significant scholarly work has engaged in the “archival turn,” and pioneering scholarship has considered the role of archives for the North Atlantic world, relatively less consideration has been given to the early-modern Iberian Atlantic and subsequent Latin American and Caribbean worlds. This, despite the fact that Latin American archives have historically played critical roles in state-building processes, enabling academic research, safeguarding national memory creation, empowering communities, or even contributing to post-conflict reconciliation efforts. Furthermore, recent developments in the digital humanities as related to Latin America and the Caribbean are expanding and reformulating archival practices of display, outreach, and collaboration in ways that seek to democratize access. In short, centering the conference on Latin America allowed for a rethinking of archival practices and their ethical and political implications on a global scale.
To consult specific conference sessions, use the links below:
- Thursday, February 24: Archival Politics, Philosophies, and Practice
- Friday, February 25: Inter-Institutional Archival Networks, Social Justice, and Community Memory
Thursday, February 24
Archival Politics, Philosophies, and Practice
Opening Ceremony and Keynote Address
Opening Remarks by Adela Pineda Franco, Director, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies (LLILAS); Melissa Guy, Director, Benson Latin American Collection; and Lina Del Castillo, Associate Professor, LLILAS and Department of History
Opening Keynote by Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo, University of Chicago, CIDE
On History and Monuments
Respondent and Q&A moderator: Lina Del Castillo
Panel 1 – Histories of Collecting and Stories
This panel centered on collecting, understood as the process of categorizing things as similar and then bringing them together into the same space, be it in physical or virtual forms. Each process of collecting has a history, and the collectibles themselves each also have stories to tell. The case studies explored here include tangible objects, such as documents or artifacts, as well as intangibles, such as literary narratives. By opening an interdisciplinary dialogue on narratives of collecting and collecting narratives in Latin America, we hope to highlight diverse ways of understanding processes behind the creation of archives.
Moderator: Lina Del Castillo, Associate Professor of Latin American History, The University of Texas at Austin
Discussant: Sylvia Sellers-García, Professor of History, Boston College
Zeb Tortorici, New York University
Erotic Archival Imaginaries: Collecting, Archiving, and Destroying Pornography in Mexico
Miruna Achim, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Cuajimalpa
Jade drawers and speculative cartographies: collecting, storing, and configuring Mesoamerica since the nineteenth century
Adriana Pacheco, Founder/Producer, Hablemos Escritoras Podcast
Escritoras que no existen. Repensando la función del archivo frente a la producción literaria contemporanea
César A. Salgado, The University of Texas at Austin
Boom and Bust: Locating Revolution in the Benson Collection’s Julio Cortázar Papers
José Manuel Mateo Calderón, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Los papeles y los días (terrenales) de José Revueltas
Spotlight on the Benson
Evocación de Genaro García: coleccionista, historiador y maestro
José Montelongo, John Carter Brown Library, Brown University
Panel 2 – Public, Access, and the Archival Dimensions of Digital Humanities
The expansion of digital humanities has started to redefine how we think of, and with, archives — not only in terms of provenance, selection, and preservation of documents, but also in terms of accessibility and use. Big-data tools have also streamlined ways of tracing how users interact with online collections — often informing the digital projects themselves. This panel seeks to identify the archival dimensions of select public-facing digital humanities projects by centering the user. All projects developed here have made real-world objects and documents that are not necessarily located in one physical space available for broad public access via virtual space. Questions to explore include the ethical, political, pedagogical, and technological considerations and challenges that have gone into making these collections available to a broader, engaged public.
Moderator: Camila Ordorica, PhD student in History, The University of Texas at Austin
Discussant: Christina Wasson, Professor of Anthropology, University of North Texas
Alex Borucki, University of California Irvine
In Search of Captives and Slave Ships: Reflections on the Spanish American Archives of the Slave Trade Routes (related: The Slave Voyages Database)
Jaime Borja, Universidad de los Andes
Archivos visuales y minería de datos. El proyecto Arca y la cultura colonial como espacio digital
Carolina Villarroel, University of Houston
Latina/o/x Perspectives in the Digital Archive
Brooke Lillehaugen, Haverford College
The Ticha Project: Digital Approaches to Pedagogy and Language Activism through Colonial-era Zapotec Language Manuscripts
Inez Stampa and Vicente Arruda Câmara Rodrigues, Centro Memórias Reveladas
Memórias Reveladas: A reference center for the archives of the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964–1985)
María de Vecchi, Artículo 19
Camino a la verdad: La experiencia de Archivos de la Represión y Archivos de la Resistencia en México
Closing Keynote
Cristina Rivera Garza, Author, Translator, and Critic / Distinguished Professor in Hispanic Studies, University of Houston
The Liliana Rivera Garza Archive: The Afterlives of Femicide
Respondent and Moderator of Q&A: Adela Pineda Franco, Director, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Friday, February 25
Inter-Institutional Archival Networks, Social Justice, and Community Memory
Opening Keynote
Gustavo Meoño Brenner, Guatemala, ex-director, Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional
El Archivo Histórico de la Policía Guatemalteca y los Derechos a la Verdad y la Justicia
Respondent and moderator of Q&A: Lina Del Castillo
Panel 3 – ‘(Re)conociendo’ Community Rights Through Archives and Memory
Different communities in Latin America have sought to have their political rights recognized through the gathering of documentation and the collection of memories. The presentations in this panel demonstrate how communities have documented their experiences of human rights abuses, their territorial claims, or their right to exist as a distinct cultural group. These stories do not often sit comfortably with dominant narratives. The process of recognizing — or el proceso de “(re)conocimiento” — matters precisely for that reason. Being cognizant of challenging truths as they have played out in the region may help us create more nuanced understandings about the ways communities and individuals can assert their right to have rights.
Moderator: Janette Núñez, LLILAS and iSchool master’s student, The University of Texas at Austin
Discussant: Kirsten Weld, Professor of History, Harvard University
Daniel Arbino, Benson Latin American Collection
“Una herida abierta”: The Anzaldúa Archives as a Nepantla Space for Healing
Cecilia Bautista, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo
Los indígenas michoacanos frente a la privatización de la propiedad comunal a través de la digitalización de la colección de los Libros de Hijuelas, 1719-1929
María Paz Vergara, Fundación de Documentación y Archivo de la Vicaria de la Solidaridad, Chile
El archivo de la Vicaria de la Solidaridad y su aporte al derecho a la verdad, justicia y reparación en Chile
Celina Flores, Memoria Abierta, Argentina
Conocer el movimiento de derechos humanos argentinos a través de sus archivos: la experiencia de Memoria Abierta
Tatiana Seijas, Rutgers University
Waiting for Freedom in Mexico’s Black Pacific, a story from 1597
Panel 4 – Modern Institutional Networks Visualize Early Modern Archives: The Case of the Relaciones Geográficas y Topográficas
The 16th-century Relaciones Geográficas y Topográficas allow us to delve into archival interdependence then and now. The Relaciones endeavored to describe and map hundreds of municipalities in the Spanish Empire in response to a standard questionnaire. The project was remarkably successful in gathering information. Although we have yet to fully grasp how this information was put to use, we do know that it circulated throughout imperial archival networks. As such, the Relaciones become a representative case study for understanding archival networks as mechanisms to make knowledge possible and visible in both the past and the present. Invited scholars and archivists discuss the challenges involved in gathering vast amounts of documentation hosted by dozens of archives worldwide. They do so to highlight the processes behind reconstructing the archival and epistemological networks that this corpus evidences, and showcase the pedagogical and research potential of digital tools that necessarily must be developed through inter-institutional collaboration.
Moderator: Rafael Nieto-Bello, PhD student in History, The University of Texas at Austin
Commentator: Kelly McDonough, Associate Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, The University of Texas at Austin
Rosario I. Granados, Associate Curator, Blanton Museum of Art
Mapping the Memory of an Exhibition: The Relaciones Geográficas at the Blanton
Mackenzie Cooley, Hamilton University
Knowing Nature, Knowing Empire in the Relaciones Geográficas
Nadezda Konyushikhina, Universidad Estatal M.V. Lomonósov de Moscú
Aplicación de GIS en la reconstrucción del régimen señorial en España en la segunda mitad del Siglo XVI (a partir de las Relaciones Topográficas de Felipe II)
Mariana Favila, Digging into Early Colonial Mexico
Explorando el México colonial temprano: estudio de caso sobre redes de conectividad en las Relaciones Geográficas utilizando un gazetteer del siglo XVI
Closing Keynote
Arndt Brendecke, Professor of History, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
Unreadable Things
Respondent and Moderator of Q&A: Rafael Nieto Bello, The University of Texas at Austin
The 2022 Lozano Long Conference is grateful to the following organizers, sponsors, and collaborators.
Organizers
LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections — A partnership between the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection and the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, LLILAS Benson raises awareness of past and current issues that affect Latin America and US Latina/o/x communities through its world-class collections, globalized higher education, research, international exchange, and public programs.
Sponsors
Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
Latin America Initiative, School of Law, The University of Texas at Austin — The Latin America Initiative promotes and consolidates the relationship between Texas Law and law schools throughout Latin America.
Collaborators
Institute for Historical Studies, The University of Texas at Austin — Established by the Department of History at The University of Texas at Austin in 2007, IHS provides a dynamic space for scholarly inquiry and exchange. The Institute organizes international conferences, fosters scholarly presentations and roundtables, promotes critical discussion of historical themes and methods, and encourages reflections on the origins and legacies of historical events.
Not Even Past — This digital magazine, published by the Department of History at The University of Texas at Austin, serves as a robust platform for public history.