Original decoloniality in latin america and baroque conditioning of the territory of new spain: Convents, presidios and indigenous towns

Abstract

Baroque in Latin America calls on concepts and notions related to various disciplinary fields, and geographically, it can be reviewed as an aesthetic synthesis of the political historicity of space. This study analyzes those geographical objects that explain what is defined as baroque conditioning of the territory, resultant of Iberian colonization in the Americas, especially New Spain. Methodologically, it is about (1) the complex conditioning of the territory of New Spain forged by three amalgamated colonial institutions of possession and control (mapped in this study): convents, presidios, and indigenous towns, and (2) the introduction of the notion of original decoloniality. Research reveals how those objects (amalgamated) constitute embryos of cities conditioned by a funding mentality and a “baroque ethos”, paradoxically stimulants of an indigenous, black, and mestizo resistance on the continent. Such modern (or baroque) conditioning of territory-reflexing its total possession real and imaginary, through juridical, theological, and productive colonial praxis-becomes the period of sacralization of New Spain space (centuries xvi-xvii).