Economic inequalities, social exclusion, discrimination against minorities, cultural resistance and disruption of social cohesion: all these are key concerns in the current European and global agenda, in both scholarly work and policy-making. This project addresses these issues through the study of processes of resistance by social and institutional actors who have been historically disadvantaged, discriminated against and dominated. RESISTANCE intends to provide an understanding of how these actors were able to influence processes of social change, either by opening societies to diversity and making them more inclusive and equal, or, conversely, by causing the increase of repression. Rooted in the disciplinary field of history, RESISTANCE seeks to use the past as a laboratory for the observation and analysis of complex processes of resistance and dynamics of conflict, allowing the critical thinking of current conflicts in our European multicultural societies. By using a concept of resistance that connects continued and less visible forms of resistance, cultural dissent and violent revolts, this project widens the understanding of the processes that lead to the erosion of the political body.

The focus is on the former Iberian empires, Portugal, Spain and their colonies, over an extended period of time, from the sixteenth century to the first half of the nineteenth century. The spatial framework covers Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Because of the very nature of these large-scale political entities, the two Iberian empires were based on diversity and inequality as far as the political, legal, ethnic, social, economic, cultural, religious spheres and gender were concerned. By incorporating the European processes of subordination and resistance into a comparative framework of inquiry that is more usually found in post-colonial studies and more commonly applied to colonial societies, RESISTANCE challenges the image of the dominated as mere victims, thus enriching our knowledge of agency, subjectivity, diversity, complexity and, above all, their capacity for participating in decision-making processes and changes in society. The ultimate goal of RESISTANCE is to produce a reinterpretation of the universe of “the dominated” and their impact on societal changes.

Additionally, this project intends to put together a transnational network for research and training involving universities and research units in Europe, America and Africa with the aim of fostering innovative research and the transfer of knowledge in the field of cultural diversity, power relations and social change.

To this end, RESISTANCE is organised as follows: it is led by the University of Évora, and made up of six other European academic institutions (in Portugal, Spain and Germany) and six non-European universities (in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Cape Verde, Mexico, and the USA).

The research team consists of nearly 90 researchers at different stages of their career development, and two technical staff members. Teams are coordinated by researchers with a solid track-record of research on the workings of political processes and social dynamics in the Iberian empires during the early modern period, ensuring that the study of diverse forms of resistance will be in tune with the latest academic works produced. The mobility aspect of our project will use to the best advantage the range of different skills of each group, producing synergies and exploiting complementarities.