Early Modern Iberian Worlds: Before the Storm: Corn and Knowledge Production in 18th-Century Mexico
Before the Storm: Corn and Knowledge Production in 18th-Century Mexico
Ivonne Del Valle Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, UC Berkeley
Between 1785 and 1786, known as 鈥渢he hunger years,鈥 Hip贸lito de Villarroel wrote Enfermedades que padece el reino de la Nueva Espa帽a, a scathing evaluation of New Spain鈥檚 economic and social situation. Writing as he was in the midst of the crisis, one could wonder why his proposed solutions failed to connect the dots between the growing presence of homeless, destitute people in Mexico City and colonial economic policies. It can be argued that Villarroel, as the colonial bureaucrat he was, could not go beyond the sedimented core of knowledge production in colonial settings.
Positioning some factions of the struggle for Independence on the horizon (the storm referenced in the title) this talk will address the reasons behind the hunger crisis, and Villarroel鈥檚 botched diagnostics project.