research overview
- My research focus on the way interpretations of a pre-colonial past drives the formation of Mexico as an imagined community. I am interested in how foreign and local scientific travelers and intellectuals re-semanticize objects and create narratives based on the cultural materials they collected from indigenous societies in Mexico. I examine the ways by which these collections and interpretative narratives become institutionalized as cultural heritage of the nation. My unique epistemic approach uses museological theories to study the primary texts written by scientific travelers and deploys an interdisciplinary lens, including literary theory, to analyze exhibitions of cultural materials in Mexican museums. My interdisciplinary approach draws from museum studies, literary theory, postcolonial theory, cultural studies, anthropology, theory of objects, ethno-archeology, and theories of space.