Research in Sucre

I began my Bolivian adventures in Sucre, as you saw from my most recent post. I had been advised by several colleagues that Sucre was a great place for research and that it was at lower elevation than many of the other places I wanted to visit so I should start there – I was at a conference in November and a colleague from Mexico City who studies Bolivia told me I should give myself extra time with the altitude, so I finally got the memo. It took me about five or six days and over the counter altitude pills to be able to walk around Sucre without wanting to die inside. The altitude meant that I found it a bit hard to do any kind of work. It also took me another five or six to figure out the microbuses (think large vans for group tours, where Bolivians can stand and Rebecca can crouch down significantly in order to pay the driver) and taxis (both microbuses and taxis proved to work in much the same way in other Bolivian cities, so this was very useful to learn).

Sucre was also where I conducted some of the most significant research for my project so far. I went to the national archives, the archives for the Archdiocese of Sucre, and the archives for the main public university in Sucre (formerly a Jesuit institution, founded in the colonial period).

The national archives were partially helpful for my project – I registered there in advance so it was easy to see what I wanted to see – and the archivists actually told me to go to the university’s archives because they thought it would help me advance my project. It remains to be seen whether this will advance the project or not as I have not, in fact, written anything for this project, but I really appreciated the assistance. No pictures of that space, unfortunately.

I also went to the archive at the Archdiocese of Sucre, which was by far the most useful for my project, and inside of the cathedral complex, which was really cool. The archivist also invited me to listen to his choir perform baroque music composed in Bolivia, sung inside the cathedral, which had great acoustics, allowed me to see the Virgen de Guadalupe de Sucre again, and to notice that there was a globe in part of the altar which had some interesting overtones that perhaps everyone should be Catholic, but even though I am definitely not, I was still able to enjoy the space. I took no photos of this archive either, only the cat that a security guard chased into the archive instead of outside of the building. One of the more unexpected events of my research career.

Reading inventories of churches, shrines and chapels was super interesting, and I could have done a lot more – but I think what I did manage to do was quite helpful to my project and helped me imagine what people might have been doing at these shrines near mines. The ecclesiastical vocabulary was not the kind of Spanish I am familiar with – but was similar enough to what I had been reading in Brazil that I felt confident about the comparative aspect of my work. If I have to return to Bolivia to do more research I would not mind. I took a lot of photos of documents and hopefully counted them correctly to pay for them.

Thanks to the kind advice of an art historian I bought the heaviest books I have ever owned … and got to see an art restoration project in progress and speak with the art restorer about her work. Very cool.

This Movie Lied to Me, or, Research in Minas Gerais

My biggest disappointment on this trip so far has been visiting a mine in Mariana, Minas Gerais, in Brazil. According to Brazil with Michael Palin, there’s a shrine to St Barbara in a mine in Minas Gerais. This mine, however, was not mentioned in any of the literature on miners’ religious practices. After going to several mines I realized where the documentary was filmed. I had already planned to visit the Mina de Passagem, and so one morning I took the bus for a visit.

Now, as an aside: when I travel I prefer to keep all my transportation options to subways/light rail because there are only so many places a train can go. If they are diverted, they still end up somewhere recognizable. Nowhere I visited in Minas Gerais (outside of the capitol, Belo Horizonte), has rail. So I took local and intercity buses. This is always a nerve-wracking experience – even though many bus routes are on the Moovit app – I never knew how much to pay, where the bus stops were, or if you could hail a bus when the bus stop is not clear. The inter-city buses, which I took to the mine and to the archive I mention in this article had a separate person to collect money and give change so at least my confusion with Brazilian transportation and currency was not slowing down other people too much.

I took a tour and when we arrived at the shrine, the guide said it was put there for tourists. I speak very rudimentary Portuguese but the guide elaborated, and said a lot of movies and telenovelas have been filmed there so I knew it was the right place. The documentary lied to me! That being said this mine had a shrine in it, which was interesting, and something does not have to be historically accurate to be worth investigating. If it did, I would have written far fewer articles and books and so would many other people.

Mine entrance, Mina de Passagem

Shrine to St. Barbara, Mina de Passagem

I also went to the archive at the Archdiocesan archive in Mariana, and looked at some documents, and the Casa dos Contos museum in Ouro Preto, to look at some more. The latter was more fruitful because I could take pictures and use my computer to take notes. My handwriting skills have really deteriorated so I can’t do it for that long.

View from the Igreja São Pedro, Mariana, where the Archdiocesan Archive is located

By far my favourite place to do research so far has been in the Archdiocesan archive in Diamantina, where I went after I left Ouro Preto. The archivist was actually a lawyer so I was skeptical but she explained that she had taken some additional workshops or courses and over the past couple of years had inventoried the majority of the collection, so when I explained my project she was really helpful! I also sadly could not take pictures of documents there but the other person in the archive was using his computer so I asked if I could use mine too, and thankfully I could. That is a place I would like to go back to to learn more about life in a mining region.

Nossa Senhora Aparecida, Patron Saint of Brazil, in the Archdiocesan Archive in Diamantina

San Luis Potosí

I spent just over a week in the city (and state) of San Luis Potosí, Mexico. I planned to do archival research but did not know what to expect.

I picked San Luis Potosí because it was the only state not on the highest level of “do not travel” from the Canadian and US governments in a region known for mining. Since I am traveling with the support of internal grants, I thought this might mean less paperwork (looking back, I am not sure it would have mattered).

I went to two museums, one dedicated to the work of the Mexican surrealist painter and sculptor Remedios Varo.

I also wandered around the downtown, and saw a monument to victims of feminicide (genocide of women) and graffiti protesting the fact that the government is not doing enough.

I had found an article that gave an outline of every archive in the state, which was super useful, and I figured that the easiest archive to access would be the one from the state government, since government offices are typically open to the public.

The first day I went to the archive, the archive workers were doing some kind of training until later in the day. I solved the problem of “too much time” by having delicious Mexican breakfasts overlooking one of the many beautiful squares in downtown San Luis Potosí. Sidebar: it transpired that this training was a weeklong event but that was only posted after I left on Wednesday.

The archive staff gave me clear instructions on the kind of letter to bring back the next day so that they would have a record of my visit and they let me use the search database and read documents without this letter. There were very few people in the archive, which meant I had plenty of time to ask questions. I chatted a bit with a grad student, and it looked like a few other grad students, and then some older men who could have been academics or academic adjacent, or who were either researching family history or the history of their towns.

I learned that almost the entire state was mined for some kind of natural resource from conquest onwards. Today, companies from my home on native land (Canadian mining enterprises) are doing a very good job of using 21st century technology to get whatever minerals are left. I found some interesting maps, which are different than maps of mines in the US and maps of this region in the colonial period, which I saw in an archive in Spain. I learned that nearly every mine is named after a saint and that nearly every town is also named after a saint. These things seem somewhat self-evident so I am not sure what I will do with this information. I also consulted some books and theses at the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis.

On my last day in San Luis Potosí I took a tour to Real de Catorce, a former mining town turned pilgrimage site. But that will be part of a future post.

2023 Travels

Hello and welcome back to my blog after a many year hiatus. I am on sabbatical this year and so am once again traveling. I’m researching religious sites in or near mines and asking what these churches (primarily) are doing for the mine workers – how do they offer ways mine workers (who are often immigrants or migrants from another part of the same country) community, a sense of transcendence, or solidarity in the union sense? Do they offer others around a mining operation a sense of safety from explosions or environmental devastation?

My academic travels are starting at the Hagley library. I am living in a museum, ie living my dream! It is at the site of the former DuPont gunpowder factory. The home where I’m staying is right across the road from a Sunday school for worker children, which came out of the First Great Awakening in the United States, and the idea that children needed some kind of education.

The museum is somewhat isolated – I saw a deer from my bedroom window the other day. For those concerned about my safety there are many people around during the day, and maintenance staff, the director, and other scholars are all on site.

In the mornings I make my way from the former company town to the archives – in a place that once stored or manufactured something to do with sodium – or the library. I have enjoyed its approach to archives, which is quite different from archives in Mexico. I can make an appointment, request everything ahead of time and then there are carts with my name on them! There is no daily maximum of files, and there is sufficient staff that grad students and professors can do research peacefully – and members of the public can get the attention they need if they are not very familiar with archival processes.

So far the most interesting files I’ve read have been about how DuPont collaborated with progress in Mexico, information about DuPont company towns, and the relationship between Catholicism and Irish radicalism in the US (ie the Molly Maguires). Who knows what I’ll find next week!