Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies

Staff Profile

Dr Giuliana Borea

Lecturer in Latin American Studies

Background

I am a social anthropologist informed by an interdisciplinary perspective into the arts and culture. I have built my career at the intersection of research, teaching, cultural policy and curatorial work.

I joined Newcastle University´s School of Modern Languages as a Lecturer in Latin American Studies in September 2021. Before coming to Newcastle, I was a Marie Curie Research Fellow at the University of Essex and a Stipendiary Fellow at the Institute of Latin American Studies in the University of London's School of Advanced Study. I have a long academic relationship with Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, where I am an Affiliated Lecturer in Anthropology.

My research concerns the political economy of contemporary art worlds; different epistemologies of art; museum theories, politics and practices; place-making and sensory knowledge with a focus on Latin America, particularly on Peru. I am the author of Configuring the New Lima Art Scene: An Anthropological Analysis of Contemporary Art in Latin America (Routledge, 2021) and editor of Arte y Antropología, Estudios, Encuentros y Nuevos Horizontes (PUCP, 2017).

I am currently the SML Decolonising Champion, and a member of NU Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies' steering committee and of the SML EDI committee. I am also a member of the European Association of Social Anthropology's Anthropology and the Arts Network convening team. 

Qualifications

  • PhD in Anthropology, New York University, US
  • MA in Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas, University of East Anglia, UK
  • MA in Museum Studies, Universidad de Valladolid, Spain
  • Specialization in Cultural Policy and Management, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Iztapalapa, Mexico
  • BA in Anthropology, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú

Professional memberships

  • Fellow of the European Association of Social Anthropology, EASA (Convening Team Member of Anthropology and the Arts Network-ANTART, 2022-2024)
  • Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute, RAI
  • Fellow of Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK, ASA
  • Fellow of Latin American Studies Association (Executive Council Member, Visual Culture Section, 2019-2022).  

Professional work in museums and cultural policies

  • Coordinator of the Museum of Contemporary Art-Lima, Institute of Contemporary Art, 2006-2007
  • Coordinator of the Museum Network Project Qhapaq Ñan, Peru’s National Institute of Culture, 2006
  • Director of Museums and Cultural Heritage, National Institute of Culture, Peru, 2005
  • Coordinator of the National Museum of Chavin Project, National Institute of Culture, 2004-2006
  • Co-founder of Tandem: Cultural Management for Development Association, 2010- 2015 

Fellowships and awards

  • SML Faculty Research Fund, Newcastle University, 2022
  • Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship, European Union (€224,933), 2019- 2021
  • Research Award, Vice-Chancellor Office of Research, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2017, 2019, 2020
  • Visiting Stipendiary Fellowship, School of Advanced Study, University of London, 2016-2017
  • Wenner-Gren Dissertation Fieldwork Grant, Wenner-Gren Foundation, 2013-2014
  • Thinker Foundation Summer Research Grant, Center for Latin American Studies, New York University, 2011
  • MacCracken Graduate Fellowship, New York University, 2009-2014
  • Endesa Fellowship for the Iberoamerican Cultural Heritage, Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, Spain, 2003-04
  • Fundación Carolina Fellowship, Program of Education, Spain, 2003


Research

Amazonian indigenous contemporary art – Amazonart Project
My current project – which was recipient of a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship – investigates the work and activism of indigenous Amazonian artists as they enter global art circuits and has produced new curatorial narratives through a collaborative methodology with indigenous artists. Addressing issues of belonging, spatial politics, ecological conflicts, migration and human rights, it shows how indigenous artists are crucial political actors dealing with urgent topics and proposing alternative futures. See: Amazonart-project. I am currently working on the book that integrates this research. 

Art, anthropology and political economy
My latest book Configuring the New Lima Art Scene: An Anthropological Analysis of Contemporary Art in Latin America (Routledge 2021) traces the practices of artists, curators, collectors, art dealers and museum identifying three moments in the shaping of Peru’s contemporary art scene. The book exposes the practices of the local, the global, indigeneity and politics in the arts through analytical chapters, conversations with artists and a curatorial project. 

My volume Arte y Antropología: Estudios, Encuentros y Nuevos Horizontes (PUCP, 2017) contributes to bring theoretical and case analysis of Latin American researchers to the field of art and visual cultures. My forthcoming volume, edited with Gisela Cánepa and Alonso Quinteros, Trazando las Antropologías Visuales en Latinoamérica, will bring contributions from Latin America to museum studies, art, audiovisual production, digital studies, and methodology. 

Museums, materiality, curatorial practice and collaborations
My research also concerns the theory and agency of materiality and the politics of cultural representation. I have analysed the ways in which museums represent and shape national and local identities and reinforce exoticisms, and explored how categories and narratives, such as ‘arte popular’, hierarchically divides subjects, objects and knowledges based on of race and ethnicity. I have developed critical analysis on the category of ‘global art’ and I am currently writing a chapter for a forthcoming book.  In addition, my work includes curatorial projects which address aesthetics in the plural and explore ways to foment collaborative curatorial practice. 

Place-making and sensory knowledge
The third strand of my research focuses on place-making and sensory practices: from the analysis of the construction of the territory of Andean communities in Cusco with special attention to boundary rituals to the study of transnational art platforms and networks, and to my current work on Amazonian spatial politics and cosmopolitanism; from the analysis of museum exhibitions as multisensory arenas to methodological inquiries. 


POSTGRADUATE SUPERVISION 
I am interested in supervising work on art, design and visual practices from Latin America; the intersection of art and anthropology; art, political economy and transnational circulation; material culture, museums and cultural policies; indigenous peoples and different ontologies, particularly of Andean and Amazonian peoples; class, race and indigeneity; territory, place-making and sensory knowledge.

PhD thesis in progress – Newcastle University:
  • Miriam Leggins, ´Quechua online classes and the making of communities and language revitalization’ (supervisory committee: Josep Cru (main), Giuliana Borea and Patricia Oliart), SML. 


PhD thesis in progress - Quito 

  • Manuel Kingman ‘El Arte Popular en el Arte Contemporáneo del Ecuador’, Universidad Simón Bolivar, Quito. 


MA thesis defended – Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú: 

  • Natalia Jaira del Aguila, En defensa del arte popular. Trayectoria de coleccionismo del Museo de Artes y Tradiciones Populares del IRA-PUCP, 1979- 2014. MA in Art History and Curatorial Studies, 2020.
  • Fernando Padilla, Percepciones y Usos Polítcos de Julio C. Tello en su ciudad natal de Huarochiri. MA in Anthropology, 2020.
  • Carlos Zevallos. La resistencia de la imagen fotográfica: prácticas y discursos artísticos en la fotografía limeña contemporánea. MA in Visual Anthropology, 2016.
  • Jorge Juárez. Entre la calle y la galería: Trayectoria del colectivo fotográfico Lima Foto Libre desde la antropología visual y del arte. MA in Visual Anthropology, 2015.  

Teaching

I am module leader of

LAS4007 - Latin American Art and Theory 

LAS2028 - Cultura y Poder en América Latina: Debates en Antropología


and I contribute to 

LAS1010 - Introducción a América Latina 


For Postgraduate Supervision, please see Research Interests.  

Publications