Ignacio Martinez

Ignacio Martínez is an assistant professor of history at the University of Texas at El Paso specializing in the history of colonial Latin America. Originally from Roswell, New Mexico, Martínez is the son of immigrant parents from Durango, Mexico and the first in his family to attend university. He received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of New Mexico and his Ph.D. from the University of Arizona. His research and scholarly interests include the Atlantic World, the intellectual history of colonial Mexico, the history of emotions, and the social and cultural history of the Spanish borderlands. His current work investigates social relationships along New Spain’s northern frontier during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by looking at the various ways in which friendship was understood, performed, and manipulated by its residents. This study utilizes amity as a lens to better view the complex negotiation for power and influence that occurred along the frontier.