We are delighted to announce the opening webtalk of the project "Colonial legacies, invisible institutions, and financial markets in Latin America (and beyond)". In this first online lecture, Professor Kathryn Burns (University of North Carolina) will explore in conversation with Professor Regina Grafe (EUI) the making of and long-term impact of Colonial Habits. Convents and the Spiritual Economy of Cuzco, Peru (Duke University Press, 1999), which almost two decades ago opened up entirely new questions about the entanglements of religious institutions, women’s participation in the credit markets, and how credit and finance sustained the structures of the Spanish Empire.
About the project:
The project "Colonial legacies, invisible institutions, and financial markets in Latin America (and beyond)" tries to offer a general picture of the organisation and functioning of the financial systems in Colonial Spanish America from a non-Eurocentric perspective. By bringing together scholars who have devoted attention to the alternative financial mechanisms and institutions of the Spanish monarchy, the project is intended to question the assumption of financial systems with little sophistication and poor performance compared to North-Western European ones. It consists of two main public events.
Firstly, a series of online lectures will be given between May and November 2021. Senior scholars are invited to deliver a forty-minute talk on those financial mechanisms and institutions; questions and debate will follow. Secondly, a double-session workshop for early-stage researchers will take place in September and October 2021. Young scholars will discuss their work on censos, ecclesiastical institutions, usury rates, mercantile corporations, etcetera. The call for papers will be launched in the next few weeks.