Cuban-Irish Diasporas: Gender, Race and Ethnic Whitening Strategies

Project Information

CID

Grant agreement ID: 843927

DOI

10.3030/843927

Project closed

EC signature date 27 March 2019

Start date 1 October 2021

End date 30 September 2024

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 244 326,72

EU contribution

€ 244 326,72

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITY OF GALWAY
Ireland

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - CID (Cuban-Irish Diasporas: Gender, Race and Ethnic Whitening Strategies)

Reporting period: 2023-10-01 to 2024-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

STAND ALONE SUMMARY

Cuba-Ireland Digital Archive (CIDA) is a digital humanities (DH) project concerned with the entangled histories of Irish, European and African Diasporas in colonial Cuba. Drawing on untapped and endangered sources selected from Cuban, Irish, Spanish, and British archives, the digital repository is organised for open access and analysis of individuals' lives caught up in the nexus of transatlantic Irish migration and Atlantic slavery. This examination of interactions by early Irish settlers with respect to whitening processes, slavery and abolition in the Hispanic Caribbean contributes new perspectives to the study of Irish migration history and to global historiography of European migration to Cuba and the Caribbean generally.
The study examines the place of Irish ethnicity in the colonial racial project of blanqueamiento or whitening predicated on race mixing. This investigation of intersecting processes of gender, race, and class permits a deeper understanding of how Spanish colonial social hierarchies shaped Irish-African relations in a time of escalating slavery in Cuba. Moreover, Irish surnames, when conceptualised as markers of human property, open up genealogical lines of African people and their descendants originating in the asymmetrical and violent power relations of slavery, evidence of Irish involvement in slavery and the slave trade.

The final phase focused on decoding the designation of Irish surnames through enslavement making it possible to generate African identities and build individual biographical profiles of people enslaved by Irish migrants. The data is recorded and analysed with RegID, a digital identities tool available on Walk With Web. Using digital tools for social network analysis we can realise a deeper understanding of the interactions between African and Irish people in the Hispanic colonial society of Cuba. The findings contribute to a neglected critique of epistemic violence and knowledge production in both Caribbean and Irish Studies.

In addition, the construction of a database and a curated open access aggregate bilingual collection of digital sources hosted at the University of Galway (UOG) has made this data amenable to digital analysis such as prosopography, mapping with geolocation, interactive maps, and visualisation. Datasets will be made available for a broad range of study including digital humanities, scholarly research and creative cultural production.
This examination of the history of European colonialism and settlement in the Caribbean has broader relevance to current global migration and integration challenges. The findings throw light on colonial legacies of gender, race and unfreedom in current discourses about inward migration to Europe

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

DISSEMINATION

2022
A X(formerly Twitter) handle @CubaEireDigital set up.
3 conference papers: IASIL UL, Limerick (July 2022); Oficina del Historiador de La Habana, Cuba (Sept 22)
1 Keynote: the Symposium of Irish Studies in Latin America, USAL, Buenos Aires

2023
3 conference papers: Casa de Las Americas, Havana (Feb 23); SILAS, University of Galway (June 23); Caribbean Digital, Yale University (Dec 23)
Guest speaker Dept of Anthropology & Sociology seminar, Simon Fraser University (May 23)
D5.5 Convened the IX Society for Irish Latin American Studies (SILAS) conference at the Moore Institute, University of Galway 21-23 June 2023. DH projects were highlighted at a round table seminar on DH and migration studies.
Invited speaker at IRELAND – IBERIA & IBERO-AMERICA. HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES MEETING, A Scientific Symposium to mark Spain ́s Presidency of the Council of the European Union, Embassy of Spain, Cervantes Institute, Dublin 23 Oct 2023.
Publications. 1 chapter in conference proceedings publication ‘Genealogías irlandesas de la esclavitud en Cienfuegos’, in V Coloquio Presencias europeas en Cuba. Memorias, (Ediciones Boloña, 2023) pp. 36-47.
Cuba-Ireland Digital Archive is completed with 427 documents with 6000+ surrogate digital images.

2024
5 conference papers: dri.DPASSH at the Hunt Museum, Limerick (May 24); UK-Ireland DH conference, UCC (June 24); GCIS, University of Galway (June 24); Cuba Research Forum, University of Nottingham & University of Havana (Sept 24); Bonn Center for Dependencies and Slavery Studies (BCDSS) (Sept 24); Symposium on the Racial Dimensions of the 2004 Irish Citizenship Referendum (Oct 24)
Invited speaker at workshop on Irish and British Migrants in Latin America and the Caribbean, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow (Sept 24)
Publication Peer review journal ‘Irish Immigrants in Colonial Port Cities of Cuba: Havana, Santiago, and Cienfuegos’ Margaret Brehony; Giselle González García in Journal of American Ethnic History (2024) 44 (1): 111–134. https://doi.org/10.5406/19364695.44.1.06. LinkedIn
Open Access Cuba-Ireland Digital Archive published by University of Galway Hardiman Library Digital Collections
Book proposal ready to go to publishers: The Irish in Cuba (1720-1900)
2 transdisciplinary collaborations: Irish musicians performed a commemoration of Irish railroad workers who died in a cholera epidemic and lie in unmarked graves in Havana. An account of this event appears in the 2024 biography by well-known musician/singer John Faulkner.
A musical interpretation of a manuscript source from this archive was selected by Historian Niall Whelehan as part of BYOHammer https://byohammer.com/blogger-gb-about/ a project that combines historical sources, music and digital technologies.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Cuba-Ireland Digital Archive is the first open access online archive mapping the Irish in Cuba. The project continues to build on the published collection and curate topic specific exhibitions on OmekaS, an open-source web platform for digital collections and media rich online exhibitions. Because many of the manuscript sources are endangered CIDA contributes to preservation. Digitisation of a new collection of documents from the Cuban National Archives, funded by the Royal Irish Academy, will further enhance the digital collection. A literature review is ongoing as new publications appear and new questions are generated through DH analysis and visualisation.

A prosopography analysis is available using NODEGOAT CMS. Digital identities for women and people of African origin with Irish surnames is available on RegID enabling closer analysis of Irish participation in slavery by amplifying the relationships between enslaved people and people of Irish descent.This has produced new perspectives that raise questions about women and slave ownership.

Using DH methods, the project has extracted data from documents to do with diverse social groups of Irish extraction e.g. bonded Irish labourers who worked alongside enslaved Africans on the railroads, skilled labourers in large farms and slave plantations, wealthy plantation owners and colonial elites, enslavers (men and women) and slave traders. The analysis shows solidarity by some who supported the abolitionist cause and others who participated in the institution of slavery. The data about Irish slave owners is examined from the perspective of the enslaver and the enslaved. This analysis tracing the intergenerational persistence of Irish surnames in Black and White genealogies provides rich detail about the experience of generations of enslaved people through their connection with the Irish. The findings contribute to Irish Studies and Black Studies.

Ireland-Cuba Two Island peoples in the Same Sea