Project description
Investigating the mystery of late Spanish Empire’s security shift
As the late Spanish Empire grappled with the looming spectre of losing its American colonies due to late-18th-century external upheavals like the American and French Revolutions, a profound shift occurred. Security transformed into a cornerstone of governance, leading to extensive regulations to safeguard colonial order. Funded by the European Research Council, the SUSPICIO project will unravel this historical enigma. Led by experts in archive research and Hispanic studies, the project aims to explore previously neglected sources of political crime and examine how the colonial administration identified and judged ‘suspects’. By dissecting the polarising effects of security politics, this project promises a fresh perspective on the dissolution of the Spanish Empire that resonates in today's world.
Objective
SUSPICIO proposes an entirely new hypothesis in the field of modern history as well as in Hispanic studies: that security became a key concept of governance in the late Spanish Empire (ca.1770–1820). This phenomenon began in the last quarter of 18th century when Spain felt the threat of losing its American colonies through external events that questioned the colonial rule, including US independ-ence and the influence of the French revolution. The perception of threat and the Spanish government’s distrust of their own population in America gave rise to extensive security regulations and measures in order to protect the colonial order.
With my extensive expertise in both archive research and Hispanic studies, SUSPICIO will, for the first time, study thus far neglected sources of political crime. The novel approach to these sources will ana-lyse how the colonial administration identified and judged those individuals who were perceived to be a threat to the order, i.e. who were categorised as ‘suspects’. There was no longer the requirement for a rebellious act to already have occurred in order to make an individual an enemy of the state, but ra-ther the mere suspicion that a person would perhaps – in the future – act against the state.
SUSPICIO will study to what extent the creation and persecution of ‘suspects’ polarised the people so that, rather than preserving the colonial rule, it had a debilitating effect. By regarding the ambivalence and counterproductive effects of security politics, the project promises a new interpretation of the dis-solution of the Spanish Empire. Its case may serve as an example, even for today, of how supra-national political entities can collapse under the pressure of security concerns, even though these secu-rity measures were meant to preserve them.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Keywords
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2022-COG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
18071 GRANADA
Spain
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