Mario Graña Taborelli and Hayley Roy were fellows at the CES from 1 October 2025 to 31 March 2026. They would like to take the opportunity to share with us the results of their work:
Hayley Roy:
"As my fellowship at the Centre for Empire Studies concludes, I am pleased to share an overview of what I have accomplished during my time in Münster.
As proposed, I finished two dissertation chapters during my tenure here, both concerned with empire, women’s mobility, and the global circulation of healthcare knowledge. The first is a comparative study of six important nurses who travelled to work in German East Africa before 1890, which carefully examines the role of class and confession in interpersonal connections between nurses, authorities, and patients. The second investigates the role of the colonial encounter in regulating and standardizing nursing in Germany by focusing on a meeting in the Foreign Office in March of 1890, which sets forth the argument that nursing professionalization was accelerated in the colonies compared to at home in Germany.
Sections from both chapters formed the cores of the two presentations I made here. Giving a talk at the Modern History Research Colloquium was a great way to kick off the fellowship and establish connections with professors and students in the Historical Seminar. It was also meaningful to participate in the weekly colloquium as an audience member for the remainder of the semester.
I am very thankful for the opportunities to help co-organize and present in the “Imperial Frontiers – Local and Global Entanglements” Workshop, which were immensely rewarding experiences. The workshop itself provided an invaluable exchange with outstanding scholars from Europe, Asia, and Latin America.
I’d especially like to thank my friend and colleague Dr. Mario Graña Taborelli for helping me to think through imperial frontiers, as well as innumerable other questions and ideas across space and time, throughout our six-month stay in Office 126.
In addition to my dissertation chapters, I wrote abstracts and drafted papers for the American Association for the History of Nursing/American Association for the History of Medicine Conference, as well as the German Historical Institute’s Transatlantic Doctoral Seminar, which have both been accepted for the upcoming summer.
I also proposed a poster presentation for the American Historical Association’s 2027 Conference, which would be based on a digital mapping project that began to take shape here in Münster. The results have yet to be announced.
Finally, I applied for and won a Dissertation Completion Fellowship at Emory University’s Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry, where I will reside for the 2026 – 2027 academic year.
I hope to keep in contact with my colleagues and friends at the CES and to find fruitful ways to continue our collaborations and exchanges going forward. I thank the Centre for Empire Studies and the University of Münster for the chance to be here and share my work."
Mario Graña Taborelli:
"Just wanted to share, as my fellowship with the Centre for Empire Studies (CES) at Universität Münster is coming to a close, that as part of my commitment, I drafted two articles that have been sent for publication to Autoctonía http://www.autoctonia.cl/index.php/autoc and Revista Complutense de Historia de América, https://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/rcha two academic journals rated as Q1 and Q2, from Latin America and Spain, respectively.
As planned, I explored through them the subject of “locality” in the construction of empires.
The first article, titled “Defending One’s Own. Yanaconas, Soldiers, and Citizens in the Construction of Locality in the Valleys of Tomina, Jurisdiction of the Royal Court of Justice of Charcas Early in the Seventeenth Century” identifies and explains three stages in this process “locality” construction, focused on the analysis of a petition that residents drafted in 1606, centred on a narrative of a “poverty-stricken and at war” region. The document’s cacophony is studied to make visible/widen our view of diverse social groups, including “soldiers” and “yanaconas”. Whereas the studies on these Indigenous peoples have been centred on their role as workforce; in this article, they are presented in a novel manner as carriers of local knowledges and active participants in the defence of their frontier, which broadens our view of the participation -voluntary or not- of conquered Indigenous peoples in empire construction.
The second article, titled, “Hombres pláticos [sic]. Territorialisation and Captains in the Frontier of Tomina in the district under Jurisdiction of the Royal Court of Justice of Charcas towards the end of the Sixteenth Century”, is focused on three Spanish/mestizo captains (Pedro de Segura Zavala, García Mosquera and Melchor de Rodas) and their role and that of their networks, including unconquered Indigenous chiefs, in the territorialisation of that space. It highlights the importance of these often overlooked “practical men” who had knowledges of normativities, languages and were frequently well integrated into mestizo and Indigenous societies, which facilitated and shaped the territorial expansion of the 16th Century Spanish empire. Through these characters, it is possible to outline such process as relational, cultural, and centred on conflict. This second article will be part of a dossier called “Actors, Negotiations and Resistance in the Iberian Monarchies’ Frontiers. 16th through 17th Centuries” edited by José Sovarzo, Hugo Contreras, and Patricio Vergara from Universidad de Chile and Universidad de Los Andes in Chile.
Furthermore, I have drafted two post-doctoral research projects -a DFG and an Early Career Leverhulme project- taking advantage of the university’s well-stocked libraries -of history, law, romance languages, and ethnic studies- and Germany’s fabulous inter-library lending scheme. I also wrote four book reviews, in English and Spanish, that are under publication with Boletín del Instituto de Historia Argentino y Americano “Dr. Emilio Ravignani”, The Sixteenth Century Journal, Bulletin of Latin American Research, and Renaissance Quarterly.
It was also a great pleasure to support the university’s PhD and BA students with comments, literature and insights into their theses and work.
It was also amazing to participate in three CES-Workshops -including one that I helped to organise- on “Hostages in the Wide Eurasian World”, “Imperial Frontiers- Local and Global Entanglements” and “the Latin American PhD Students Workshop”. I cherished these opportunities and learned a lot from colleagues.
Finally, I would like to thank everyone at the Centre and the University and Libraries, and my colleague Hayley Roy, that made me feel so welcome during my six-months stay. I am missing you all already."