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Staff Profile

Dr Giuliana Borea

Senior Lecturer in Latin American Studies

  • Email: giuliana.borea@ncl.ac.uk
  • Address: Room 4.26, Old Library Building
    Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU
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.

Before joining Newcastle University in 2021, 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 School of Advanced Study, University of London. I have a long engagement with Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú where I am an Affiliated Lecturer of Anthropology and a member of the Research Group of Visual Anthropology. I am also a convenor of the Anthropology and the Arts Network of the European Association of Social Anthropology (EASA).

My research and teaching explore the politics of contemporary art worlds and art practices; material culture, circulation, and museums; indigenous representation and self-representation; cities, migration and rural communities; different knowledge traditions and methodologies 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).

University roles:

  • Member of the Centre for Latin America and Caribbean Studies’ Steering Committee (2021- present)
  • SML Acting Director of Impact and Engagement (2023 - Jan 2024)
  • SML Decolonising Champion (2021- Jan 2024)
  • Member of the SML Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee (2021-Jan 2024)

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 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

Professional memberships

  • Fellow of the European Association of Social Anthropology, EASA (Convening Team Member of Anthropology and the Arts Network-ANTART, 2022-2026)
  • 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). 

Fellowships and awards

  • Institute of Social Science – Pioneer Award, 2023
  • HaSS Engagement and Place Fund, 2023
  • HaSS Global Fund, 2022
  • SML Faculty Research Fund, Newcastle University, 2022
  • Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship, Horizon Europe (€224,933), 2019-2021
  • Research Award, Vice-Chancellor Office of Research, Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru, 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
  • Tinker 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, 2003-2004
  • Fundación Carolina Fellowship, Program of Education, Spain, 2003 
Research

My research concerns five interrelated strands:

Indigenous contemporary art, activism and alternative futures: 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. It addresses issues of belonging, spatial politics, ecological conflicts, migration and human rights, and shows how indigenous artists are crucial political actors dealing with urgent topics and proposing alternative futures. See: Amazonart-project.com.  

The politics of art scenes and networks: My research also traces the practices of artists, curators, collectors, art dealers and museum analysing the making and politics of art worlds. My book Configuring the New Lima Art Scene: An Anthropological Analysis of Contemporary Art in Latin America (Routledge 2021) identifying three moments in the shaping of Peru’s contemporary art scene as it interrelates art practices, agents´ strategies and multiscale networks. 

Art and anthropology, and expanding knowledge production: I am interested in exploring and highlight diverse ways of making and knowledge production. 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 coedited forthcoming volume Antropologías Visuales Latinoamericanas: Genealog[ias, Investigación y Enseñanza (FLACSO-PUCP, 2024) will bring contributions from Latin America to museum studies, art, audiovisual production, digital studies, and methodology.

Museums, materiality, curatorial practice and collaborations: With a solid professional work at the museum sector, my research and publications also concern the theory and agency of materiality and the politics of representation and self-representation; the making of collections, travellers, anthropologists and collectors. I have also analysed museum narratives and their shaping of national and local identities and explored critically categories such as ‘arte popular’ and ‘global art’. My work includes curatorial projects which address aesthetics in the plural and explore ways to foment collaborative curatorial practice.

Place-making, cities, mobility and rural communities: I have a constant interest on place-making which spans from historical and ethnographic analysis of the construction of the territory of Andean and Amazonian communities with special attention to boundary rituals, relation of worlds and beings to the study of urban indigeneity, neoliberal cities and gentrification, networks of power and multiscale assemblages.

POSTGRADUATE SUPERVISION:

I am happy to supervise work about:

  • Art, heritage, and visual culture.
  • Indigenous representation and self-representation (museums, tourism, leadership, activism, art, rituals, and social media).
  • Travellers, collections, circulation, museum practices and heritage.
  • Social and territorial dynamics in Latin American cities and rural communities particularly in the Andes and the Amazon.
  • Different knowledge traditions and decoloniality.
  • Topics on inequality, class and race, power, and value-making.
  • Projects that explore the using of ethnography, curatorial practices, collaborative methods, multiscale approaches, multimodal and/or new methodologies.
  • Other projects that explore transnational, regional and global assemblages and networks.

PhD thesis in progress – Newcastle University:

  • Miriam Liggins, ´Quechua online classes and the making of communities and language revitalization’ (supervisory committee: Josep Cru (main), Giuliana Borea and Patricia Oliart), SML.
  • Mariana Tapia Sanchez, 'Self-Representation of the Latin American Diaspora in the UK during the 21st Century through the Lens of Contemporary Art and Emerging Cultural Circuits in London, Manchester and Newcastle Upon Tyne' (supervisory committee: Giuliana Borea (main), Nick Morgan, Erika Servin, Alistair Robinson), SML.
  • Jack Wake-Walker, 'From Aura to the ‘Indepingible’: An Experiment in Filming the Unfilmable' (supervisory committee: Geetha Jayaraman (main), Ian McDonald, Giuliana Borea and James Riding), SACS.

 PhD thesis in progress – Universidad Simón Bolivar, Quito:

  • Manuel Kingman ‘El Arte Popular en el Arte Contemporáneo del Ecuador’

 MA thesis in progress - Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú

  • Juan Freddy Abarca, 'La escena del arte de la acuerela en Arequipa', MA in Anthropology.

 MA thesis defended – Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú:

  • Piero Fioralisso ´Estrategias y regímenes laborales en el teatro de grupo en contextos neoliberales’ MA in Anthropology, 2024.
  • 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

  • Stage 2: LAS2028 - Cultura y Poder en América Latina: Debates en Antropología
  • Stage 4: LAS4007 - Latin American Art and Theory 

and contribute to 

  • Stage 1: LAS1010 - Introducción a América Latina 


For Postgraduate Supervision, please see Research Interests.  

Publications