Research

As an environmental historian of Latin America, I focus on the history of frontier zones, Indigenous history, and oral history in the Andes-Amazon region in the Americas. My research explores the environmental history of the montaña region, one of the classic transition zones in modern history of Latin America located between the high Andes and lowland Amazonia. I study the entangled relationships of indigenous peoples and outsiders with the region’s unique ecological conditions from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. In my research and teaching I am interested in exploring an environmental history “from below;” one that puts emphasis at the relationship between human beings and nature by highlighting the role of native populations.