Legacies of Latinidad: Latin America, Colonial Culture and Connectivity in Manila Museums

ABSTRACT

Public histories that explore connections between the Philippines and Latin America have rarely been analysed in Manila's museums. Yet, they provide a key space to reflect on changing understanding of coloniality and the importance of transpacific mobility for contemporary Philippine national identity. While museums have previously tended to minimise the presence of Latin American individuals, multiple museum exhibitions have nonetheless pivoted implicitly on the transpacific connection through discussion of trading galleons, religious practices and agents of Spanish empire. The article explores the emergence of conversations that recognise the historical connectivity between the Philippines and Latin America. This connectivity has often been silenced in Philippine museum practices, as the nation seeks to affirm an identity, distinct from its Spanish colonial occupier. The new emergence of transpacific connections in museum narratives provides significant potential to explore the emergence of Philippine identity however. Recentring attention on the era of the galleon trade between Manila and Latin America reveals new sites of emergence and potential meaning-making across Spain’s Pacific colonies.

KEYWORDS:

• Philippines
• Spanish Empire
• coloniality
• museology
• curatorial practice

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Robert Mason

Robert Mason is an Associate Professor at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. His research explores public histories and heritage connected with colonial and contested pasts. He has a particular focus on the entangled histories and heritage of the Spanish, Portuguese and British in Asia-Pacific.

Maria Sofia Amparo Santiago

Maria Sofia Amparo Santiago is an educator, children’s book author, curator, and archivist. Currently the assistant archivist of Probe Archives, Sofia was also the former curator and associate manager for the Filipinas Heritage Library, and an exhibitions and programming consultant for the Museo Pambata. She is also the co-founder of the Museum Collective PH, a Filipino collective of museum and cultural workers that works on museum education and contemporary art projects in Southeast Asia about memorialization and contested histories.