Sergio Bebin Cúneo
Lima
Host: Frederik Schulze
Global South Studies Center (GSSC)
Research Project
Modernizing Economic and Social Practices. The Spanish Colonial Regime and Indigenous Agency in Peru
In the context of the Enlightenment in the late eighteenth century, the Spanish colonial regime in Peru tried to change the economic and social practices of the Indigenous population to increase economic production and financial revenues. Spanish officials, priests, and missionaries implemented an educational and political program to introduce new agricultural practices, the use of mules, and iron tools. Two historians of Latin America – one from Peru, one from Germany – will work on this topic with a praxeological perspective. First, they aim to reconstruct how the Indigenous population reacted to the forced alteration of their agricultural practices. Did they accept the Spanish intents of modernization, did they maintain their own methods, or did they hybridize both forms? The analysis of practices, so goes the argument, can help to uncover Indigenous agency and the complex modes of colonialism. Second, a praxeological standpoint also requires a critical self-reflection of historiographical work. The analysis of written documents produced by the colonial regime is a practice of its own kind, facing questions of access, materiality, and positionality. As decolonial theories currently have underscored, it is important to acknowledge the historicity of knowledge production, the silencing of Indigenous voices, and the privileged access to archives and universities.
Sergio Bebin Cúneo
Vita
Dr. Sergio Bebin Cúneo is a specialist in eighteenth century Colonial Latin American History. After studying History at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, he completed his Ph.D. thesis on the Bourbon reforms and the integration of Indigenous people into colonial economy in the Department of Altamerikanistik und Ethnologie at the University of Bonn in 2021. He has extensive experience in conducting research at Peruvian archives in diverse regions across the country. The outcome of his interdisciplinary research includes books and peer-reviewed articles. After being an assistant professor at the University of Piura in Lima from March 2022 to December 2024, Dr. Bebin is currently teaching a course for the new Diploma Programme in Latin American Studies, and he holds a research fellowship at the Erich Auerbach Institute, University of Cologne.
Research Areas
- Colonial Latin American History
- Andean History
- Spanish Empire
- Spanish colonization
- Bourbon reforms
- Indigenous agency
- Repartos de mercancías (distribution of merchandise)
- Corregidores (magistrates)
- Mules and trade
Publications (Selection)
- 2024. “The mid-eighteenth-century Bourbon reform of repartos de mercancías to the Indian population in Peru and New Spain: ¿Monopoly or government policy?”, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies 30(3), 371–389.
- 2024. “Virreyes sin superintendencias. ¿Reforma borbónica o proyecto personal de José de Gálvez?”, Revista de Indias 84(290), e010.
- 2023. “¿Cómo integrar a la población indígena en el sistema colonial del siglo XVIII? El proyecto de Socorros y la hispanización de los indios”. In Karoline Noack and Ana Presta (eds.), Repensando la sociedad colonial:perspectivas, abordajes y desafíos de los enfoques multidisciplinares – Perú y Nueva España, siglos XVI–XVIII, Göttingen: V&R unipress, 113–135.
- 2022. “Del Tucumán al Perú: El reparto y el comercio de mulas en la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII”, Allpanchis 49(59): 101–140.
- Bebin Cúneo, Sergio (2021). El rey y sus vasallos: una reinterpretación del reformismo borbónico y del proyecto de socorros de 1783, Norderstedt: BoD.
- 2018. “El proyecto de socorros de 1783 y la necesidad de integrar a la población indígena en la economía colonial”. In Manuel Alcántara et al. (eds.), Historia y Patrimonio Cultural, Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, 1244-1254.
- 2016. Mercaderes y corregidores: el reparto mercantil en el Perú, 1752–1780, Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Instituto Riva-Agüero.
Auerbach Lecture
Contact
Dr. Sergio Bebin Cúneo
History
Universidad de Piura
Erich Auerbach Institute for Advanced Studies
Fellowship: 15.10.–15.12.2025
E-mail: sergiobebin(at)gmail(dot)com