Participant Info
- First Name
- María
- Last Name
- Portilla Moya
- Country
- United States
- State
- MA
- mportilla@umass.edu
- Affiliation
- University of Massachusetts Amherst
- Website URL
- https://www.umass.edu/history/about/directory/maria-portilla-moya
- Keywords
- Colonial Latin America, Critical Cartography, Spatial History, Territorial Formation, Real Audiencia de Quito, Andean Region, Visual and Material Culture, Historical Geography, Imperial Knowledge Production, Colonial Bureaucracy, Cartographic Practices, Nation-State Formation, Political and Cultural Geography, Memory and Identity, Border Studies, Geographic Imaginaries, Enlightenment Science, Latin American State Formation, Early Modern Empires
- Availability
- Media Contact
- Additional Contact Information
- mportilla@umass.edu
- PhD
- other credentials
Personal Info
- Photo
- About Me
I am a PhD candidate in History at the University of Massachusetts Amherst specializing in colonial Latin America, with a focus on the history of cartography, spatial knowledge, and territorial formation. My research examines how maps and geographic knowledge were used to define, negotiate, and contest authority in the region of the former Real Audiencia de Quito from the late colonial period through the early republic.
My work approaches cartography not as a neutral representation of space, but as a form of knowledge production embedded in political, administrative, and cultural processes. By analyzing maps alongside bureaucratic documents and visual materials, I explore how spatial imaginaries shaped imperial governance, nation-building, and collective memory in the Andean region.
- Recent Publications
- Media Coverage
- Social Media
- Country Focus
- Ecuador
- Expertise by Geography
- Latin America
- Expertise by Chronology
- Pre-17th century, 17th century, 18th century, 19th century
- Expertise by Topic
- Colonialism, Material Culture, Museums, Politics, Public History
