Maria Elena Bedoya Hidalgo

I have a BS from the History Department at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador. My Master’s was in in Latin American Studies from the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, and I hold a PhD from the Society and Culture Program, Latin American History, from the University of Barcelona in Spain. My academic research focuses on Cultural History, visuality, museums and material culture.

Currently, I am a postdoctoral research associate on a 3-year AHRC-funded project entitled Comics and Race in Latin America (p-I James Scorer and Peter Wade co-I).

My recent book, Antigüedades y nación: coleccionismo de objetos precolombinos y musealización en los Andes 1892-1915, was edited by the Universidad del Rosario and co-edited by the Universidad Javeriana and the Universidad Santo Tomás in Colombia. In this publication I analyze the process of construction of specialized knowledge about the past and its objects, by intellectual-collectors in the Andean region (Colombia, Peru and Ecuador) between 1892 and 1915.

I am also interested in Public History and historical curatorship. I have participated as a curator in several projects that reflect on museum collections. In this field, I have worked from the perspective of institutional critique and the different ways of constructing knowledge of the past on the basis of a "shared authority". In one of my latest projects entitled Por la plata...usos y sentidos sociales del dinero 1787-1927  I worked with numismatic collections to investigate, from a historical perspective, the different social meanings of money. In this experience I worked with several artists with tools such as the fanzine, video, as well as in the production of a curatorial experience from contemporary art. I am currently working on two editorial projects on public history and digital communities in Latin America.

2016   Ph.D. of Universitat de Barcelona in Culture and Society Program. Research field: Latin American History. Barcelona, Spain (2012-2016)

2006   Master Latin American Studies, Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Ecuador (2004-2006).