Carlos
Benítez Trinidad

My research focuses on the representations of indigenous peoples constructed during the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964–1988), exploring how the imaginary of the "indio" legitimised authoritarian developmentalist projects and the occupation of the Amazon. I have studied the crisis of indigenismo in the late 1960s, its remilitarisation, the transnational impact of the indigenous question, and the emergence of the organised indigenous movement that culminated in the 1988 Constitution. I am currently developing a new line of research on the history and political ecology of the Brazilian Amazonian landscape (1894–2022), analysing the clash between state and indigenous epistemologies in the ways of conceiving and interacting with territory. This project combines documentary archives, ethnohistorical methodology, cartography through Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and collaborative work with Amazonian communities, engaging with the environmental humanities to understand long-term socioecological transformations. I hold a degree in History from the University of Cádiz and a Master's in American Studies from the University of Seville. I completed my doctoral thesis with a CAPES fellowship at the Universidade Federal da Bahia, defending it in co-supervision with the Universidad Pablo de Olavide. My postdoctoral career includes competitive research contracts at the University of Santiago de Compostela (2019–2024), during which I undertook a research stay at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (2019–2021). I have been a visiting researcher at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú and the Universidade Federal Fluminense. I am currently a lecturer in the Department of Medieval, Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Salamanca, where I teach History of the Americas, indigenous peoples, and environmental history at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. I am a researcher at the Instituto de Iberoamérica and coordinator of the Permanent Seminar on Cultures and Indigenous Peoples at the Centre for Brazilian Studies.