Project description
Identity formation in 16th and 17th century Spain
In 1492, the Spanish monarchy began to consolidate its power after defeating the last stronghold of the Moors in Iberia. This not only led to the exile of Jewish and Islamic populations from Spanish territories but also the acceptance of Irish Catholics fleeing from their own religious persecution. The records left by these diverse communities can help us understand foundational political relationships between language, identity and discrimination. However, their records have remained largely unexplored. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) programme, the Intersectional Exile project aims to fill this gap by investigating the seldom-studied Salamanca Archive and translating documents authored in Spanish by Irish-Iberian exiles. The findings are expected to deepen our understanding of past and present migration biases.
Objective
This public and digital humanities project will carry out cutting-edge research on identity formation at the dawn of the modern nation state. In 1492, after defeating the last stronghold of the Moors in Granada, the Spanish monarchy consolidated its power through a series of religious and political reforms: this not only led to a harrowing century of exile for Jewish and Islamic populations, but also a time of refuge for Irish Catholics fleeing from the cultural oppression of English expansion. In each case, they used multilingual writing to maintain a sense of community in societies fuelled by the paranoia of religious and ethnic purity. Their records thus offer insight into the formative relations between language, identity, and historical discrimination, yet the materials left by Irish-Iberian exiles often remain little known even among scholars.
‘Intersectional Exile’ will address this gap by researching, translating, and publicly presenting a selection of early modern materials from the Salamanca Archive — a rarely studied collection of perspectives written in Spanish by Irish-Iberian exiles. The MSCA fellowship will make this possible through key access to the current location of the Salamanca Archive at the National University of Ireland Maynooth (hereafter NUIM) and contextual materials in its original location at the Universidad de Salamanca (hereafter USAL). When combined with the professional guidance of Prof Valerie Heffernan (NUIM mentor) as well as rare Irish-Iberian expertise of scholars like Prof Thomas O’Connor (further NUIM support) and Prof Javier Burguillo (USAL secondment mentor), the project will add vital nuance to scholarly theories and histories of intersectionality. In doing so, the experienced researcher (hereafter ER), Dr Laura Francis, will also address the Council of Europe’s urgent call to understand the roots of current migration biases and face past injustices through ‘memorialisation and education’.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- humanitieshistory and archaeologyhistory
- social sciencessociologysocial issuessocial inequalities
- social sciencespolitical sciencesgovernment systems
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Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European FellowshipsCoordinator
W23 Maynooth
Ireland