Andrew Fisher

Professor Fisher came to Carleton in 2003, as our first full-time Latin American historian. He offers surveys of Latin American colonial and post-colonial history, as well as seminars on Mesoamerican and Andean society and culture, Mexican nationalism, the Inquisition, and the African Diaspora in Latin America.

Professor Fisher’s research examines the transformation of Cuitlateca, Tepozteca, Nahua, and Purépecha peasant communities in the mid-Balsas Basin of Guerrero, Mexico under Spanish colonial rule (1521-1821). He traces how Hispanic, African, and indigenous migrants were assimilated into local communities, particularly through Catholic lay brotherhoods that were supported by shared agricultural pursuits and stock raising. Through these cultural practices, migrants were made into Indians, just as Indian collective identity and memory were transformed by these same outsiders. Along with numerous articles and chapters on this topic, he is also the co-editor of Imperial Subjects: Race and Identity in Colonial Latin America (Duke University Press, 2009).