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P08


Jews and new-Christians in the Portuguese imperial space (16th-18th centuries): social, economic and political dynamics and identitary constructions 
Convenor:
José Tavim (Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical)
Location:
Sala 42, Piso 0
Sessions:
Thursday 18 July, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon

Short Abstract:

We intend to analyse the influence exerted by the life trajectories and experiences of New Christians and Jews living, respectively, in the Portuguese Empire and in the Diaspora (though connected with Portugal and her world), in the multidimensional phenomenon of identity construction.

Long Abstract:

Today we have a considerable number of studies regarding the participation or inclusion of the Jews and the New Christians, in partnership or not, in the social and economic circuits in the Iberian Peninsula and her imperial world during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Recently, David B. Ruderman considered that some analysis of the economic strategy of the Iberian Jews in the Diaspora, with direct and indirect involvement in the Portuguese and Spanish imperial trade, fails to include such participation in the social and cultural environment of the Jewish communities in Amsterdam, Hamburg, the south of France and Italy.

The objective of this panel is to provide an interpretation focused in a new dimension: to reveal through different analysis the consequences of the active involvement of these Jews in the commerce of the Portuguese Empire before the institutional changes introduced in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which according to Sarah Abrevaya Steyn had serious disruptive repercussions in these old trade networks. Therefore it is our aim to reveal their internal social and economic dynamics in a private and business level, either as individuals or integrated in commercial networks and specific communities until the beginning of the nineteenth century. Perhaps one of the main reasons for their survival as a particular social group, maintaining an identity based in common values, religious uses, cultural practices and Romance languages throughout the centuries, may have been the way they participated in this colonial trade.

Accepted papers:

Session 1 Thursday 18 July, 2013, -