Foreword

Abstract

Geographies of martyrdom and Enlightenment imagery, religious authorities who rail against local customs, and shifting histories of urban devotion—all are addressed by articles in this issue of CLAR. Also published here are meditations on the future of colonial Latin American Studies. The essays traverse an expansive swathe of territory, from Brazil and Baja to cities in the Philippines and Europe. The disciplinary lenses—history, literary studies, anthropology and art history—will be familiar, yet collectively the writing in this issue poses two broad and knotty questions. The first of these queries: what aspects of the past deserve our attention? Often scholars answer by enlisting the phrases ‘little-studied,’ ‘overlooked,’ or ‘misunderstood.’ These are prudent responses, although I do not find them particularly sustaining. For they imply that the primary work of scholarship is to fill lacunae in or correct alreadycharted maps of knowledge. Even if such cartographies exist, it is not at all clear that we should trust them as guides. The second, related question concerns the binding relationships of current work to that of previous generations: how do scholars decide what, if anything, they owe those who came before? In a recent essay on inheritance, anthropologist Tim Ingold calls for rethinking both term and concept (Ingold 2023). For him, inheritance fails to adequately explain the creative and long-term cultural practices that passing along requires (be it a family farm or academic knowledge). He further argues that inheritance elevates ancestral relations, minimizing transmissions that occur within a single generation. In sidelining inheritance, Ingold instead prioritizes perdurance and learning—both of which incorporate environmental, not strictly human-centric change over time. As he notes, ‘knowledge [...] does not “descend” from generation to generation but is regrown in each through their practical overlap as generations carry on their lives together. What every generation brings to the next are the conditions of development for this regrowth to occur’ (Ingold 2023, S41). While Ingold’s interests occupy the intersection of anthropology and biology, his thinking implicates those who write histories of colonial life and experience. Our work would be impossible without multiple kinds of passing down. ‘The colonial,’ however we wish to define or describe it, is far more than a finite period on a timeline that has come and gone, leaving traces in archives and museum collections. Those of us living in the 2020s see, feel, and experience its enduring dynamics every day. Moreover, people who study and write about colonial histories leverage—indeed depend upon—texts, archives and collections that have crossed a long durée. Also enchaining our academic practices across generations are habits of building and demonstrating expertise, of marking authority and tutoring new scholars. Ways of naming can come into play, as titles, disciplinary rubrics and even buildings cue institutional memories. And passing down functions, rather transactionally, in academic publishing, as when new editors inherit queues of material built by predecessors. There is no unbinding from certain aspects of colonialism, but academic inheritances hinge upon values that are shared, contestable, negotiable. How we adjudicate these values... this is a troublesome challenge.