Miguel A. Valerio

Miguel A. Valerio is a scholar of the African diaspora in the Iberian world. His research has focused on Black lay Catholic brotherhoods or confraternities and Afro-creole festive practices in colonial Latin America, especially Mexico and Brazil. He is the author of the multi-award winning and widely reviewed Sovereign Joy: Afro-Mexican Kings and Queens, 1539- 1640 (Cambridge University Press 2022; Howard F. Cline Book Prize in Mexican History, Latin American Studies Association 2024; Alfred B. Thomas Book Award, Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies 2023; honorable mention, International Latino Book Prize 2024) and a co-editor of Indigenous and Black Confraternities in Colonial Latin America: Negotiating Status through Religious Practices (Amsterdam University Press 2022) and Mapping Diversity in Latin America: Race and Ethnicity from Colonial Times to the Present (Vanderbilt University Press 2025). He is currently working on his second book project, Irmandade: Black Placemaking in Colonial Brazil (under contract with Cambridge University Press). His research has appeared in multiple academic journals, including Slavery and Abolition, Colonial Latin American Review, The Americas, the Journal of Festive Studies, and Latin American Research Review.