Normative Knowledge and the Emergence of New Spain

Classical historiography has tended to give a relatively simplistic view of the process of emergence of the Viceroyalty of New Spain in the central decades of 16th century, considering it predetermined by the existence of European models in the Iberian and Italic Peninsulas. The participants in the Conference Normative Knowledge and the Emergence of New Spain will explore the important role that normative knowledge (in particular, law, theology and philology, closely interconnected) played in a long and delicate process of creating institutions and normativities. By considering epochal documents of various genres, we will look at the role played by diverse epistemic communities that, far from following pre-established models, interacted in a long process of trial and error and gave rise to a localized normative knowledge.