The Cultural Agency and Limits of Minority Groups in Early Modern Iberia: A Comparative Approach

Organised by the Making of Blackness in Early Modern Spain: A Process of Cultural and Social Negotiation from the Bottom-Up project and the Cultural History of the Black African Diaspora in Early Modern Spain project, this two-day international and interdisciplinary conference seeks to bring together scholars researching minority groups who resided in early modern Iberia and its colonial territories, focusing on the cultural practices and cultural productions of these groups. 

The aim of this conference is to create a dialogue between scholars working in separate but complementary fields, acknowledging the cultural agency of minority groups within early modern Iberia, while also being conscious of the challenges and limitations they faced. We wish to investigate what these cultural productions tell us about the experiences of marginalised communities within early modern Iberia, and how they inform our understanding of early formations of racial thinking and difference. 

We will discuss the agency, cultural productions, and experiences of various minority groups who were racialised due to phenotypical, religious, cultural, linguistic, or geographical differences. We hope to consider groups such as the Afro-Hispanic diaspora, Hispanic Muslims, Jews, moriscos, judeoconversos, Roma communities, and indigenous communities, both within Iberia and the Americas.

It is also our hope that selected papers will recognise and incite conversation about the methodologies and challenges we face as scholars as we look for these figures within the archives and former cultural hubs, such as confraternities, the royal court, musical groups, and Afro-Catholic festivals. We aim to facilitate discussions about terminology, and what we mean when we talk about race and racialisation, ethnicity, Blackness, agency, and minorities in the early modern period. We also wish to recognise our own limitations as scholars who look at these groups, acknowledging the obstacles that we face and, on occasion, are unable to overcome. 

This activity is a result of the project I+D+i PID2021-124893NA-I00: The Making of Blackness, A Process of Cultural and Social Negotiation from the Bottom-Up, funded by MCIN/ AEI/10.13039/501100011033.