ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes approaches to the study of colonial materiality, art, and architecture in the Americas. Topics include historiography, debates on nomenclature, indigenous shurvivals, varied artistic influences, theories of hybridity, and decolonial theory. The limits of current scholarship in addressing colonial materiality are addressed in a case study of enconchados. These hybrid artworks created in New Spain (Mexico) employ oil pigments and shell mosaic on wood panel, with diverse sources in Asian, European, and possibly pre-Columbian art. This chapter also addresses conceptions of the colonial archive and the ways in which epistemologies of knowledge shape study.
