image: The research group on Comparative Social History at the Universitat Jaume I of Castelló, led by full professor José Antonio Piqueras, is advancing the understanding of the roots of cultural and social segregation in Latin America and the Hispanic Caribbean. The team has analysed the historical trajectory leading to racial differences in labour conditions and the consolidation of the concept of citizenship. The research, funded under the 2021 National Research Plan, is coordinated by scholars from the Universitat Jaume I and includes experts from VIU, UNIR, the Brazilian universities Federal Fluminense, Santa Catarina, and São Paulo, as well as from the University of Puerto Rico, the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo, and several academic institutions in Cuba. Artículos: https://repositori.uji.es/search?query=PID2021-128935NB-I00
Credit: Universitat Jaume I of Castellón
The research group on Comparative Social History at the Universitat Jaume I of Castelló, led by full professor José Antonio Piqueras, is advancing the understanding of the roots of cultural and social segregation in Latin America and the Hispanic Caribbean. The team has analysed the historical trajectory leading to racial differences in labour conditions and the consolidation of the concept of citizenship.
The research, funded under the 2021 National Research Plan, is coordinated by scholars from the Universitat Jaume I and includes experts from VIU, UNIR, the Brazilian universities Federal Fluminense, Santa Catarina, and São Paulo, as well as from the University of Puerto Rico, the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo, and several academic institutions in Cuba.
The project pursued three main objectives. The first was to deepen the study of economic processes, the natural environment, and their relationship with human factors. To that end, the team is developing an original database (which will be open and accessible online upon completion) on the domestic slave trade within the Brazilian Empire during the second half of the 19th century. This database may later be expanded to include data on the domestic slave trade in Cuba.
Within this line of work, the researchers have gathered information on livestock development to identify the impact of new technologies introduced during the Industrial Revolution. They have also examined contrasts between sugarcane workers in coastal areas and those in rural or inland regions, as well as described the socioeconomic evolution of free labourers in the sugar industry from the 19th to the mid-20th century.
The second line of research, focused on racial differences in the workplace, has uncovered the actions of British courts against the slave trade and deepened understanding of pro-slavery lobbying groups in Cuba and their efforts to undermine the effectiveness of anti–slave trade legislation.
In addition, the study has analysed how in Cuba, occupational roles were tied to racial hierarchies—how certain jobs became associated with certain groups—and how this racial influence in the labour market led to two major consequences: the emergence of the so-called “black work” and the construction of a nominally free labor market that, in practice, included forms of unfree, semi-free, or coerced labour maintained through control policies to subjugate workers.
The outcomes of the third line of research, focused on the governance of racialized societies, have been published in three works: Derecho antiguo y esclavitud moderna (Ancient Law and Modern Slavery), El antiesclavismo en España y sus adversarios (Antislavery in Spain and Its Adversaries), and the collective volume Travesía sin fin. De las esclavitudes ibéricas a las prácticas sociales en el Nuevo Mundo (Endless Journey: From Iberian Slaveries to Social Practices in the New World). The first explores the dichotomy between the history of slavery in Spanish America and its possible normative tradition; the second examines the unequal struggle between the natural right to freedom and the pursuit of economic profit; and the third addresses the continuous adaptations of European slavery until its establishment in the Americas.
The project has also fostered joint initiatives aimed at transferring research results to society, in collaboration with the UNESCO Chair in Slaveries and Afrodescendence at the Universitat Jaume I, directed by José Antonio Piqueras.
This research is part of the project PID2021-128935NB-I00, funded by MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and FEDER/UE, within the 2021–2023 National Plan for Scientific, Technical and Innovation Research, which seeks to promote strategic sectors for recovery such as health, ecological transition and digitalisation.
Articles: https://repositori.uji.es/search?query=PID2021-128935NB-I0