Introduction to the Dossier: “Agents, networks and practices in the distance: the exercise of jurisdiction in colonial America (16th-17th centuries)”

Abstract

Presentation of the dossier “Agents, networks and practices in the distance: the exercise of jurisdiction in colonial America (16th-17th centuries)” by its organizers, Sergio Angeli and María Cecilia Oyarzábal. This dossier highlights the actions of various agents of the Austrian monarchy in the intricate jurisdictional geography of the American colonial possessions. It shows the diversity of functions, the versatility of the relationships that were established and the complex ways of analyzing the processes that were carried out in very different areas. From the writings coming from the highest spheres of royal and ecclesiastical authority to the rumors that circulated in the cities of the New World, the analyzed documentation presents different logics to the contemporary world, where the corporate and the personal intersect in a game of policies, needs and interests that continue to generate questions and analytical possibilities in order to understand the exercise of jurisdiction during the American colonial era.