缅北禁地

I am social anthropologist working at the intersection of art, anthropology, curatorial practice and cultural policies. My research explores the political economy of contemporary art worlds, heritage and museums; Indigenous representation and self-representation, and the different epistemologies and sensory practices of place and ecology. 

I hold a PhD in Anthropology (New York University), an MA in Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas (University of East Anglia), an MA in Museum Studies (Universidad de Valladolid) and a Specialization in Cultural Policy and Management (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana de México).

Through my professional experience in museums and cultural policy in Peru, I have served as Director of Museums and Cultural Heritage at the Ministry of Culture (INC) and as coordinator of museum projects such as the Chavín National Museum, the Qhapaq Ñan Museum Network, and the Lima Contemporary Art Museum. I was also co-founder of Tandem: Cultural Management for Development, an association that promoted grassroots organisations fostering cultural policies from below.

Before joining 缅北禁地 in 2021, I held research and teaching appointments at the University of San Marcos, the University of Essex, and the School of Advanced Study -University of London. I also maintain a long-standing affiliation with the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, where I am an Affiliated Lecturer in Anthropology and a member of the Visual Anthropology Research Group. I am currently a Visiting Research and Knowledge Exchange Fellow at Goldsmiths and convenor of the Anthropology and the Arts Network of the European Association of Social Anthropology (EASA).

My current project – the - examines the work and activism of Indigenous Amazonian artists entering global art circuits and has produced new curatorial narratives through collaboratives practices and co-curatorship with indigenous artists. My curatorial work includes Ite, Neno, Here: Responses to Covid-19 (2020, with R. Yahuarcani), Place-making, World-making (2021), The Amazonian Rubber Boom (2023 with E. von der Walde) and (with J. Pinheiro and H. Sutcliffe). I have recently been appointed Lead Curator of the biennial exhibition Contemporary (2027-2028) at the Lima Contemporary Art Museum.

I am the editor of (PUCP 2017), co-editor of (FLACSO & PUCP, 2024) and the author of (Routledge, 2021), recently translated into Spanish as

University roles:

• SML Director of Impact and Engagement (since Sep. 2025 - present)
• Member of the Centre for Latin America and Caribbean Studies’ Steering Committee (2021- present)
• SML Acting Director of Impact and Engagement (2023 - Jan 2024)
• SML Decolonising Champion (2021- Jan 2024)
• Member of the SML Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee (2021-Jan 2024)

Professional memberships

• Fellow of the European Association of Social Anthropology, EASA (Convening Team Member of Anthropology and the Arts Network-ANTART, 2022-2026)
• Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute, RAI
• Fellow of Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK, ASA
• Fellow of Latin American Studies Association (Executive Council Member, Visual Culture Section, 2019-2022). 

My research concerns five interrelated strands:

Indigenous contemporary art, activism and alternative futures: My current project – which was recipient of a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship – investigates the work and activism of indigenous Amazonian artists as they enter global art circuits and has produced new curatorial narratives through a collaborative methodology with indigenous artists. It addresses issues of belonging, spatial politics, ecological conflicts, migration and human rights, and shows how indigenous artists are crucial political actors dealing with urgent topics and proposing alternative futures. See: .  

Exhibitions with Amazonart - curator of:

• Ite/Neno/Here: Responses to Covid-19 - Santiago Yahuarcani and Harry Pinedo (curated with R. Yahuarcani, Crisis Gallery, 2020).
• Place-making, World-making: Three Amazonian Indigenous Artists (Art Exchange, Colchester, 2021)
• (curated with E. von der Walde, NewBridge Project, 2023)
• (curated with J. Pinheiro Dias and H. Sutcliffe, 缅北禁地 Contemporary Art, 2025).

The politics of art scenes and networks: My research also traces the practices of artists, curators, collectors, art dealers and museum analysing the making and politics of art worlds. My book (Routledge 2021) identifying three moments in the shaping of Peru’s contemporary art scene as it interrelates art practices, agents´ strategies and multiscale networks. 

Art and anthropology, and expanding knowledge production: I am interested in exploring and highlight diverse ways of making and knowledge production. My volume (PUCP, 2017) contributes to bring theoretical and case analysis of Latin American researchers to the field of art and visual cultures. My co-edited volume (FLACSO-PUCP, 2024) brings contributions from Latin America to museum studies, art, audiovisual production, digital studies, and methodology.

Museums, materiality, curatorial practice and collaborations: With a solid professional work at the museum sector, my research and publications also concern the theory and agency of materiality and the politics of representation and self-representation; the making of collections, travellers, anthropologists and collectors. I have also analysed museum narratives and their shaping of national and local identities and explored critically categories such as ‘arte popular’ and ‘global art’. My work includes curatorial projects which address aesthetics in the plural and explore ways to foment collaborative curatorial practice.

Place-making, cities, mobility and rural communities: I have a constant interest on place-making which spans from historical and ethnographic analysis of the construction of the territory of Andean and Amazonian communities with special attention to boundary rituals, relation of worlds and beings to the study of urban indigeneity, neoliberal cities and gentrification, networks of power and multiscale assemblages.

POSTGRADUATE SUPERVISION:

I am happy to supervise work about:

• Art, heritage, and visual culture.
• Indigenous representation and self-representation (museums, tourism, leadership, activism, art, rituals, and social media).
• Travellers, collections, circulation, museum practices and heritage.
• Social and territorial dynamics in Latin American cities and rural communities particularly in the Andes and the Amazon.
• Different knowledge traditions and decoloniality.
• Topics on inequality, class and race, power, and value-making.
• Projects that explore the using of ethnography, curatorial practices, collaborative methods, multiscale approaches, multimodal and/or new methodologies.
• Other projects that explore transnational, regional and global assemblages and networks.

PhD thesis defended - 缅北禁地:

• Miriam Liggins, ´Quechua online classes and the making of communities and language revitalization’ (supervisory committee: Josep Cru (main), Giuliana Borea and Patricia Oliart), SML.

PhD thesis in progress – 缅北禁地:

• Mariana Tapia Sanchez, 'Self-Representation of the Latin American Diaspora in the UK during the 21st Century through the Lens of Contemporary Art and Emerging Cultural Circuits in London, Manchester and 缅北禁地 Upon Tyne' (supervisory committee: Giuliana Borea (main), Nick Morgan, Erika Servin, Alistair Robinson), SML.
• Yuri Gómez, 'Shifting Political Horizons: Anibal Quijano, Socialism and the Coloniality of Power'. ESRC NINE funding (supervisory committee: Nick Morgan (main), Giuliana Borea and Patricia Oliart), SML.

 PhD thesis in progress – Universidad Simón Bolivar, Quito:

• Manuel Kingman ‘El Arte Popular en el Arte Contemporáneo del Ecuador’

 MA thesis in progress - Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú

• Juan Freddy Abarca, 'La escena del arte de la acuerela en Arequipa', MA in Anthropology.

 MA thesis defended – Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú:

• Piero Fioralisso ´Estrategias y regímenes laborales en el teatro de grupo en contextos neoliberales’ MA in Anthropology, 2024.
• Natalia Jaira del Aguila, En defensa del arte popular. Trayectoria de coleccionismo del Museo de Artes y Tradiciones Populares del IRA-PUCP, 1979- 2014. MA in Art History and Curatorial Studies, 2020.
• Fernando Padilla, Percepciones y Usos Polítcos de Julio C. Tello en su ciudad natal de Huarochiri. MA in Anthropology, 2020.
• Carlos Zevallos. La resistencia de la imagen fotográfica: prácticas y discursos artísticos en la fotografía limeña contemporánea. MA in Visual Anthropology, 2016. 
• Jorge Juárez. Entre la calle y la galería: Trayectoria del colectivo fotográfico Lima Foto Libre desde la antropología visual y del arte. MA in Visual Anthropology, 2015.  

FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS:

• Catherine Cookson Foundation, 2026
• QR Policy, ESCR Impact Fund, 2025
• HASS Faculty Impact Fund, 2025
• The British Academy International Fellowship, 2025 (UK sponsor-researcher/ principal investigator Dr Danilo Baraúna, £196,350)
• Institute of Social Science – Pioneer Award, 2023
• HaSS Engagement and Place Fund, 2023
• HaSS Global Fund, 2022
• SML Faculty Research Fund, 缅北禁地, 2022
• Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship, Horizon Europe (€224,933), 2019-2021
• Research Award, Vice-Chancellor Office of Research, Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru, 2017, 2019, 2020
• Visiting Stipendiary Fellowship, School of Advanced Study, University of London, 2016-2017
• Wenner-Gren Dissertation Fieldwork Grant, Wenner-Gren Foundation, 2013-2014
• Tinker Foundation Summer Research Grant, Center for Latin American Studies, New York University, 2011
• MacCracken Graduate Fellowship, New York University, 2009 – 2014
• Endesa Fellowship for the Iberoamerican Cultural Heritage, Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, Spain, 2003-2004
• Fundación Carolina Fellowship, Program of Education, Spain, 2003 

I am module leader of

• Stage 1: LAS1010 - Introducción a América Latina 
• Stage 2: LAS2028 - Cultura y Poder en América Latina: Debates en Antropología
• Stage 4: LAS4007 - Latin American Art

For Postgraduate Supervision, please see Research Interests.  

• Articles

  • Borea G. . HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 2024, 14(1), 263-266.
  • Borea G. . Arts 2023, 12(6), 20.
  • Borea G. . Visual Ethnography 2018, 7(1), 66-83.
  • Borea G. . World Art Journal 2016, 6(2), 315-337.
  • Borea G. Personal Cartographies of a Huitoto Mythology: Rember Yahuarcani and the Enlarging of the Peruvian Art Scene. Revista de Antropologia Social do PPGAS-UFSCar 2010, 2.2, 67-87.
  • Borea, G. La Red de Museos del Qhapaq Ñan (Perú): Una Propuesta Museológica para un Itinerario Cultural. Museos.es 2025, 4, 136-143. In Preparation.
  • Borea, G. Yuyanapaq: Activando la Memoria en una Puesta en Escena para Recordar. Illapa Mana Tukukuq 2004, 1, 57-68.
  • Borea, G. Tras los Pasos del Parian en el Evento y en el Tiempo: Imágenes y Representación en la Sierra de Lima. Anthropológica 2004, 22, 151-178.
  • Borea, G. Ritual de los Linderos: Limitando y Recreando el Grupo y su Territorio. Anthropológica 2001, 19, 347-363.

• Authored Books

  • Borea G. . Lima, Perú: Fondo Editorial PUCP, 2023.
  • Borea G. . Routledge, 2021.

• Book Chapters

  • Borea G. . In: Sansi R; Tinius J, ed. The Trouble with Art: An Anthropology Beyond Philistinism. London: Routledge, 2024, pp.117-134.
  • Andrade X, Borea G, Pinochet Cobos C. . In: Cánepa G; Borea G; Quinteros A, ed. Antropologías Visuales Latinoamericanas: Genealogías, Investigación y Enseñanza. Quito: FLACSO Ecuador; Fondo Editorial PUCP, 2024, pp.28-73.
  • Borea G. . In: Brablec D; Canessa A, ed. Urban Indigeneities: Being Indigenous in the 21st Century. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2023, pp.29-58.
  • Borea G, Yahuarcani R. . In: Blackmore, L; Gómez-Popescu, L, ed. Liquid Ecologies in the Arts: Fluidities and Counterflows in Latin America and the Caribbean. New York and London: Routledge, 2020, pp.106-124.
  • Borea, G. ‘Arte Popular’ y la imposibilidad de sujetos contemporáneos; o la estructura del pensamiento moderno y la racialización del arte. In: Borea, G, ed. Arte y Antropología: Estudios, encuentros y nuevos horizontes. Fondo editorial PUCP, 2017.
  • Borea, G. Las autoridades tradicionales del distrito de Santiago del Cusco: territorio, memoria y ritual. In: Araujo, H, ed. Los Andes y las Poblaciones Altoandinas en la Agenda de la Regionalización y la Descentralización. CONCYTEC, 2008.
  • Borea, G. Museos y esfera pública: espacio, discursos y prácticas. Reflexiones en torno a la ciudad de Lima. In: Canepa. G; Ulfe, María Eugenia, ed. Mirando la esfera pública desde la Cultura en el Perú. 2006.

• Edited Books

  • Canepa G, Borea G, Quinteros A, ed. . Quito: FLACSO Ecuador; Fondo Editorial PUCP, 2024.
  • Borea G, ed. . Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Fondo Editorial, 2017.