Introducing: Pablo Merayo Montes
Pablo Merayo Montes recently joined the Institute for History as a PhD candidate within the NWO-funded project 'Dutch guest workers in 18th century Spain’ under the supervision of Raymond Fagel. Below, he introduces himself.
I am Pablo Merayo Montes and I just begun my PhD, researching textile factory workers that in the early decades of the XVIII century moved to Guadalajara in central Spain to work at the royal factories there. I was born in Madrid, but grew up in Alcalá de Henares, birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes and located about 20km away from Guadalajara. When I finished high-school I wanted an international and open education, so I looked for international programs and found the liberal arts and science bachelor's at the University of Maastricht. I lived in Maastricht until 2023 and I really am fond of the city.
I did however always have a passion for history since I was little as I used to spend plenty of time in museums and old roman and medieval ruins. Hence, when I finished my bachelor´s I chose to follow the history research master's program at Utrecht University, also moving there. It is during the program that I truly learnt the methodologies and resources necessary to study history. As part of the program, I also did an internship where I ended up presenting in Dutch in a conference at the national library in The Hague. My master's thesis was about the memory of colonialism in the European Parliament. Soon after the masters, having decided to pursue an academic career I started looking for PhD positions, finding the one I am currently doing under the supervision of Raymond Fagel and Ariadne Schmidt. It was quite a coincidence that my hometown is so close to the location we are researching. It is also curious how I, a Spanish migrant in the Netherlands from the region, am researching Dutch migrants doing the opposite migration 300 years ago.
Since the 1st November I am happily engaged with the research. I look forward to meeting all my colleagues and I am happy to join for lunches or coffees, as long as I am here, though keep in mind I commute from Utrecht, so I usually tend to leave in the afternoons around 17.