Researching colonial otherness through illustrations in the Boxer codex

Author / Creator

Flannery, Kristie Patricia, author

Available as

Online

Summary

The Boxer Codex, also known as the Sino-Spanish Codex, is an illustrated manuscript that was likely created in Manila, the capital of Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines, in the 1590s, or less...

The Boxer Codex, also known as the Sino-Spanish Codex, is an illustrated manuscript that was likely created in Manila, the capital of Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines, in the 1590s, or less than three decades after the Spanish established government in the Southeast Asian archipelago. The Codex examines the physical appearance, culture, and the social organisation of several ethnolinguistic groups that Europeans encountered in the Philippines and across the larger maritime Asia region, including in Borneo, the Maluku islands, and Japan. This case study analyses how the Codex's written text and vivid illustrations depicting these different 'types' of peoples functioned to create colonial otherness, demarcating Europeans and non-European peoples in this world region, and implying the superiority of European people, their knowledge, culture, and Catholic religion. Notions of European superiority functioned to legitimise the expansion of the global Spanish empire.

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