Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

In the volumes that compile the history of Concepción and its surrounding areas, the African and/or Afro-descendant presence during colonial times is usually reduced to trivial events. Unlike what happens in other Chilean regions, no systematic studies mention the permanence of this population in the study area during the Spanish domination. Hence, the local sociocultural imaginary does not recognize the historical depth of their presence and relevance. This research aims to carry out the first systematic compilation exercise regarding the presence of Afro-descendants in Concepcion and its surrounding areas, registering their mentions in currently available primary and secondary sources. As a result, we were able to identify a continued presence of Afro-descendants between the 16th and 19th centuries. Finally, we discuss their estrangement in historical volumes and the development of a paradigm that has made them historically invisible as part of the current social fabric in Concepcion.

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The water wheels or wheels have played a fundamental role in traditional irrigated landscapes, by allowing the expansion of cultivation areas and vertebrate the structure of the territory. They are thus part of the cultural heritage of the Mediterranean area. However, many of these devices stopped working during the twentieth century, presenting today a state of abandonment and ruin. In the Segura basin, in the deficit irrigation of the Mula River, there was a set of wheels around the town of Albudeite (Murcia Region); singular system composed of norias and rafts adapted to the shortage of water resources and the geographical characteristics of the area, where a semi-arid climate predominates.The geographical study of rural character allows to verify the singularity of this system of water management in the Spanish Levante, as well as the value that these constructions had in the extension of the arable space. In this case, it would be necessary to take care and safeguard measures on the water distribution network in particular and the landscape in general in this historic irrigation of Southeast Spain.

Sin resumen 

This issue integrates a set of articles on various issues and periods in the history of Chiapas. The seven articles and the documentary review were written by specialists in history and anthropology from Mexico and other countries. The texts cover various topics, regions and time periods: the encomiendas established in Ciudad Real —Los Altos region— in the mid-sixteenth century; changes in land use in the Indian villages of the Central Depression during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; the gradual disappearance of one of these villages —Escuintenango—; the philanthropic and scientific expeditions that arrived, first, to the Ciudad Real intendancy and then to the state of Chiapas in the 19th century; the labor relations that existed between enganchados and debtors in the coffee farms of Soconusco and, finally, the nationalist dynamics that were woven around the agrarian distribution in the border zone with Guatemala in the first half of the 20th century. These works qualify some commonplaces -still reproduced by academic and political sectors inside and outside Mexico- that minimize through simplistic readings the social and cultural complexity of the historical processes that defined the current reality of Chiapas. Therefore, the articles are part of that historiographical renewal that began in the 1980s and continues to this day despite the biased interpretations generated after the armed uprising of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) in 1994.

En este artículo se analiza la resistencia interpuesta por las comunidades indígenas ante la política de reducción de resguardos, implementada por el gobierno virreinal en el noreste del Nuevo Reino de Granada, durante el siglo XVIII y comienzos del XIX. Las improvisaciones y las arbitrariedades cometidas en estas diligencias oficiales afectaron a las comunidades nativas que cada vez vieron limitados sus espacios y sus posibilidades de reivindicar sus derechos ante el poder creciente ejercido por la capa de blancos y mestizos en sus aspiraciones de ocupación del territorio y organización a través de la erección de parroquias. Ante esto, los indígenas vieron cómo se incrementaron los conflictos interétnicos con los vecinos libres, además de lo cual experimentaron un progresivo desarraigo y una desintegración como comunidades ancestrales.

Juan Antonio Ríos Carratalá imparte clases en la Facultat de Filosofia i Lletras de la Universitat d´Alicant, es catedrático de Literatura Espanyola y forma parte del Departament de Filologia Espanyola, Lingüística General i Teoría Literaria. En 2013, recibió el premio Crítica Valenciana y está vinculado al mundo de la crítica literaria y los estudios culturales de la España contemporánea. Sus áreas de especialización son comunicación social, memoria histórica y producción de narrativas de ficción (literatura, cine, radio y televisión). Entre su larga lista de publicaciones sobre la cultura franquista y de los años de la transición destacan: Usted puede ser feliz. La felicidad en tiempos del franquismo (2013), Quinquis, maderos y picoletos(2014), Nos vemos en Chicote. Imágenes del cinismo y el silencio de la cultura franquista (2015), Contemos cómo pasó. Imágenes y reflexiones de una cotidianidad, 1958-1975 (2016), Un franquismo con franquistas (2019) y De mentiras y franquistas (2020).