Juan Manuel Ramírez Velázquez

Juan Manuel Ramírez Velázquez studies how criollo, indigenous, and Afro-descendant women reshaped life inside urban and rural spaces in colonial Latin America. Throughout the Colonial period in Latin America, social classification was made based on three components: gender, race, and class. The figure of the “Other” and otherness along with relations of inequality, formed the axis of colonization in these territories. Raza/calidad, naturaleza, gender, casta, civil status, occupation, and personal competence determined an individual’s place within the colonial socioeconomic hierarchy. However, multiracial/ethnic women navigated this colonial discriminatory system and transcended its barriers in different ways. Juan Manuel explores the configurations of resistance––the manipulation of hegemonic ideology and discourse–– utilized by these multiracial women to combat the colonial status quo and, therefore, their possible participation as agents in the creation of colonial narratives and histories.