Valeria Mantilla Morales

Bio:

My research and teaching sit at the crossroads between cultural history and the environment in Latin America and the Caribbean during both the colonial and the republican period. I underscore historical narratives of indigeneity, African diaspora, and racial mixture. My work employs interdisciplinary methods ranging from food studies to Latin American studies and environmental history, all of which I also like to bring into the classroom.

Currently, I work on a book project examining the amphibious communities of free people of color along the Magdalena River, Colombia’s main fluvial artery. Taking these communities’ pluri-ethnic and pluri-vocal vantage points, my research exposes “amphibious knowledges” as resistance to ongoing processes of colonial extraction and dispossession in Latin America while also underlining crucial aspects of water colonialism. In doing so, my research proposes a model to research and write histories of amphibious communities across the globe and across time periods.

Select Works: 

“Amphibious Landings: Free people of Color, Food supply, and Contested Land Tenure on the Magdalena River Network, 1792-1805.” Atlantic Studies: Global Currents 21 (1): 2024.