Caroline Cunill - Translation as Object and Method for Historical Inquiry: A Case Study on Sixteenth-Century Letters in the Maya Yucatec Language

Caroline Cunill is Maîtresse de Conférences at the l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. Her research intertwines the institutional and social history of the Advocates of the Indians and the Interpreters of autochthonous languages in the Spanish Empire. She also examines the complex ways in which Indigenous peoples participated in the making of colonial legal culture, especially through the use they made of the courts of justice in New Spain, Mexico. Besides her monograph Los Defensores de Indios de Yucatán y el acceso de los mayas a la justicia colonial (2012), she co-edited Las lenguas indígenas en los tribunales de América Latina: intérpretes, mediación y justicia (2019) and Actores, redes y prácticas dialógicas en la construcción y uso de los archivos en América Latina (2021).