ICOG visiting research fellow: Antonio Sánchez Martínez

From June 2020 to June 2021, ICOG is joined by visiting research fellow Antonio Sánchez Martínez. Dr Sánchez Martínez is a historian of early modern cultural and intellectual history and the history of science at the Autonomous University of Madrid.

Research

During his (for now, digital) stay at the University of Groningen, Dr Sánchez Martínez will work with Prof. Dr Luis Lobo-Guerrero and the research group of Mapping and the Making of Empire . Dr Sánchez Martínez’s research centres on practical knowledge and artisanal culture in the early modern world, with a special emphasis on the Iberian world of the 16th century.

In this coming year and continuing after that, his plans are to develop a new artisanal epistemology based on the epistemic value of the artisanal knowledge from the concrete study of cases, such as the Magellan-Elcano voyage, the problem of longitude, the Padrón Real (Royal Pattern Chart) of the Casa de la Contratación or the nautical itineraries of the pilots, among others. All these cases cover his research interests, that is, they were developed in practical and artisanal conditions and had an important impact on the modern world. The main objective is to show that artisan knowledge, traditionally excluded from the world of scientific knowledge, has epistemic value in itself, that is, it is a producer of new knowledge.

The results of this research will allow future comparisons to be made with other European contexts from the same period, such as the English, French or Dutch cases.

Visiting research fellowship programme

ICOG welcomes applications for visiting research fellowships from academics working in the fields of its five research centres. The duration of visits usually varies from a month to half a year. During this time, visiting research fellows are expected to work on their own research projects (ideally in collaboration with a scholar or an academic team from ICOG) and to participate in the events organised by ICOG.