Projects per year
Personal profile
Research interests
I trained as a historian and work across the fields of languages and cultures. I led many interdisciplinary projects across the arts, humanities and social sciences, and have applied the findings of this research to policy and shaping public opinion. I have travelled from archive-based analysis of the social and global history of early nineteenth-century warfare, to future-focused co-production of historical memory in the 2000s, and from the study of war and culture to sports and society in South America. The central thread to this research has been the place of play in society, and the way in which embodied practices are used to legitimate or resist power.
Bringing Memories in from the Margins (MEMPAZ) is an interdisciplinary investigation of the creative ways in which marginalized communities in Colombia have used arts-based methodologies to resist violence: have a look at our website, https://mempaz.com/. MEMPAZ was funded by (2018-2023) by the Newton Fund, AHRC, Research England, the University of Bristol and the Ministerio de Cultura.
The Quipu Project is a transmedia documentary, film and archive about the unconsented sterilizations 1990s Peru https://ahrc-blog.com/2020/05/28/ending-the-silence-the-quipu-project/.
My most recent book is Sports in South America: A History (2023), published by Yale University Press. It shows how South American soccer culture, envied worldwide, sprang out of societies that were already playing and watching games well before British sportsmen arrived to teach “the beautiful game.” These vibrant and distinct sporting traditions, including cycling, boxing, cockfighting, bullfighting, cricket, baseball, and horse racing, were marked by South American societies’ Indigenous and colonial pasts and by their leaders’ desire to participate in what they saw as a global movement toward human progress. Drawing on a wealth of original archival research, it debunks legends, highlights the stories of forgotten sportswomen and Indigenous sports, and unpacks the social and cultural connections within South America and with the rest of the world.
From Frontiers to Football: An Alternative History of Latin America since 1800 (2014) was a general history of Latin America's engagement with the world, which gives equal importance to sport alongside diplomacy, popular culture alongside commerce. I am currently working on a research project on the history of sport in South America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
I welcome enquiries from potential research students across these fields.
@mateobrown
External positions
Editor, Historia y Sociedad
30 Sept 2014 → …
Editor, Bulletin of Latin American Research
1 Apr 2014 → 30 Mar 2017
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Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
Projects
- 17 Finished
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UKRI ODA Block Grant Bringing Memories in from the Margins (GCRFN11)
1/10/22 → 31/03/23
Project: Research
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Truth On The Margins: Bringing Memories To Support Transitional Justice In Colombia
14/02/21 → 13/08/22
Project: Research
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Truth On The Margins: Bringing Memories To Support Transitional Justice In Colombia
Wilson Vasquez, G., Brown, M. D., Pinto Ocampo, M. T., Paulson, J. & Lopez de la Roche, F.
14/02/21 → 13/08/23
Project: Research
Research output
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History on the Margins: Truths, Struggles and the Bureaucratic Research Economy in Colombia, 2016-2023
Brown, M. D., Gomez Suarez, A., Valencia-Duarte, D., Acosta Hankin, L., Lopez de la Roche, F., Paulson, J., Gomez-Gutierrez, M., Ryder, M. L., Pinto Ocampo, M. T., Suarez, M. & Wilson Vasquez, G., 8 Jun 2023, In: Rethinking History. 27, 3, p. 461-487 27 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review
Open Access -
Sports in South America: A History
Brown, M. D., 28 Mar 2023, London: Yale. 277 p. (History)Research output: Book/Report › Authored book
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Cricket in the Country of Football: Sport and Social and Cultural Exclusion in Nineteenth-Century Brazil
Andrade de Melo, V. & Brown, M. D., 22 Dec 2020, (E-pub ahead of print) In: International Journal of the History of Sport. 37 (2020), 11, p. 1025-1045 22 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review
Open AccessFile1 Citation (Scopus)31 Downloads (Pure)
Datasets
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Data from Quipu Project (12-2018)
Brown, M. D. (Creator) & Tucker, K. (Creator), University of Bristol, 6 Dec 2018
DOI: 10.5523/bris.30xw6snm2bwml2q0bmoiviy2gg, http://data.bris.ac.uk/data/dataset/30xw6snm2bwml2q0bmoiviy2gg
Dataset
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Building knowledge partnerships to support the Colombian Truth Commission to work towards the inclusion of marginal voices in their activities
Julia Paulson (Host), Matthew Brown (Contributor), Maria Teresa Pinto Ocampo (Contributor) & Alejandra Miller Retrepo (Contributor)
9 May 2018 → 31 Jul 2018Activity: Other activity types › Collaboration
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European History Quarterly (Journal)
Matthew D Brown (Editor)
2011Activity: Publication peer-review and editorial work types › Editorial activity