Louise C. de Mello is a PhD candidate in History at the Universidad Pablo de Olavide, in Seville under joint supervision at the Universidade Federal Fluminense, in Rio de Janeiro. Her PhD research looks at cross-frontier relations in the southwest of Amazonia during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. By applying an interdisciplinary methodology based on the analysis of both documental and archaeological sources, she studies the interactions and clandestine flow of people and goods, articulated around two Portuguese fortresses: The Stronghold of Bragança and the still-standing Fortress of Príncipe da Beira. She is also interested in exploring interethnic and gender relations, identity, ethnicity, processes of ethnogenesis, hybridity, territorialisation and construction of borders, maroon communities and the social interpretations of materiality. Previous institutions she has collaborated with include the Museu Nacional/UFRJ and FUNDHAM, both in Brazil, La Sapienza, in Italy, the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, the Universidad Nacional Amazónica de Madre de Dios, in Peru and the Universidad Nacional de Oriente, in Mexico.