Decentering European Written Culture: Indigenous Appropriations of Printing in the Southern Borderlands of the Iberian Empires

Abstract

This article explores the production of written culture in a remote region of Iberian colonial domains: the Jesuit-Guaraní missions in Paraguay in the eighteenth century. Through an examination of manuscripts, printed books, and chronicles produced in the missions, it seeks to shift the focus of early modern literacy studies by emphasizing the autonomy of written culture and the agency of Indigenous elites. We argue that written production in missionary borderlands was not merely a top-down imposition of European traditions and technologies in the periphery, but rather a form of Indigenous strategic appropriation oriented toward the development of sui generis forms of spirituality, cosmopolitan visions of Christianity, and political strategies with regional and global impact. Indigenous actors did not simply resist or subvert colonial tools: instead, they reconfigured them from within.