Roundtables
II CHAM International Conference offers an opportunity for researchers from CHAM to share some of their current projects. To this end there will be four short roundtables, taking place on Friday 17 July, 09:30-11:00. RT1 and 2 will be held together in Sala 1.05, Edifício I&D, Piso 1; RT3 and 4 will be held together in Sala 0.06, Edifício I&D, Piso 0.
Roundtable 1: Interactions between rivals: the Christian mission and Buddhist sects in Japan (c.1549-c.1647)
Alexandra Curvelo, Ana Fernandes Pinto, Angelo Cattaneo
Short abstract
Buddhism in Japan acquired its own specific forms that distinguished it from its mainland variants, including the emergence of sects and schools that had developed sets of beliefs and practices over the years. It was with some of these schools that the missionaries working under the Portuguese Padroado created acquaintances and alliances.
This project aims at promoting a comprehensive research on the way Southern Europeans (nanban-jin) and Japanese confronted each other, interacted and mutually experienced religious Otherness through the study of a composite cultural heritage, created in Japan by both European and Japanese.
Long abstract
In terms of philosophical conceptualization, as well as representations of divinities and “forces”, Buddhism in Japan acquired its own specific forms that distinguished it from its mainland variants, including the emergence of sects and schools that had developed sets of beliefs and practices over the years.
It was with some of these schools that the missionaries working under the Portuguese Padroado created acquaintances and aliances; this was the case, among others, of the schools of the Zen tradition (the Rinzai and the Soto schools, for instance).
Jesuit missionaries living in Japan produced a vast corpus of written and visual documents. Through the lens of these men, we can come in contact with precious information on the political, religious, social and cultural Japanese organization. The assemblage of this data was essential for the Jesuit’s missionary strategy and methods applied to this specific reality. The nature of the missionary activity explains the reason why Jesuits, who often acted as interpreters and “in between” of Toyotomi’s and Tokugawa’s courts, gave noteworthy attention to local religious practices in their writings.
The Jesuit presence in Japan has also left testimonies concerning Japanese society that are still essential for our understanding of Early Modern Japan and the shaping of Japanese tradition (painting, calligraphy, tea ceremony, grammar, lexicography, the art of war, etc). Furthermore, not only the Christian presence shaped Japanese practices, as the inverse is also true.
This project aims at promoting a comprehensive research on the way Southern Europeans (nanban-jin) and Japanese confronted each other, interacted and mutually experienced religious Otherness through the study of this composite cultural heritage, created in Japan by both European and Japanese.
Roundtable 2: Population and statistical censuses in the Portuguese empire: demography and colonial governance, 1776-1875
Paulo Teodoro de Matos, Cristina Nogueira da Silva, Paulo Silveira e Sousa
Short abstract
After the 1750's censuses processes in the Portuguese empire gained particular significance and were decreed to all its territories. Consisting on hundreds of statistical tables, decrees and royal orders, this vast corpus of documents has an enormous potential in the estimations of unpublished demographic statistics for the colonial period.
Long abstract
From the 1720s the Portuguese overseas bureaucracy started to order the collection of organized, quantified information on population. Censuses processes gained particular significance during the second half of the 18th century and were decreed to be applied in all territories of the empire in Portuguese America, Africa, India and the East. An extensive corpus of documents was thus produced, consisting on hundreds of statistical tables, decrees and political instructions. The Portuguese bureaucratic elites, influenced by the political arithmetic and physiocratic thought, understood population as a State resource that should be calculated, managed and placed according to governance conveniences. Following pioneering authors we agree in its enormous potential in the estimations of demographic statistics for the colonial period. On the one hand, this project aims to analyze the types of royal orders and statistical tables, as well as its evolution and growing complexity, building short demographic monographs to all the territories; on the other, we seek to turn available online this vast set of data. This project expects to achieve important contributions on the social structures of the Portuguese empire, with emphasis on slavery, social and religious groups, mortality, living standards and colonial governance.
Project website: http://www.carefulsoftware.pt/pop_colonial/mainEnglish.html
Roundtable 3: BAHIA 16-19. Salvador da Bahia: American, European, and African forging of a colonial capital city
Giuseppina Raggi
Short abstract
The project Bahia16-19 is a project of mobility scheme (IRSES), funded by the REA (Research Executive Agency - European Commission). It aims at creating a top-level research and advanced training network on the colonial history of the Atlantic, which involves 24 researchers from three different countries (CHAM-UNL; UFBA; EHESS)
Long abstract
The project Bahia16-19 is an European project of mobility scheme (IRSES), funding by Research Executive Agency (PIRSES-GA-2012-318988). It aims at creating a top-level research and advanced training network on the colonial history of the Atlantic, which involves 24 researchers from three different countries (CHAM-UNL - Universidade Nova de Lisboa , Portugal; UNBA - Federal University of Bahia, Brazil; EHESS - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, France).
The three partners have chosen to focus on Salvador de Bahia, and to study its role and functions as a capital city in an imperial context. In Salvador de Bahia European settlement, native cultures, and African forced migration created a multi-cultural society. Due to this fact, this city was undoubtedly an exceptional place. Covering the period from the 16th century to the post-independence era, the ensemble of researches due to be carried out within the project will provide an archival based and reflexive addition of up-to-date knowledge.
The scientific program is divided into five work packages. The first three WPs consist of field research based upon original and new archival and art material coming from Bahia archival collections, museums, churches, convents and public 17th-19th century buildings, and with archival and art material coming from Portuguese collections and libraries. WP4 involves the organization of a cross-borders discussion and synthetic assessment on the current state of art in history, art history and humanities about Ancien Régime Brazil in a global Atlantic perspective. As for WP5, it develops parallel to WP1-3 and WP4 activities, and intends to define a program for an inter-university training in Atlantic global studies.
Roundtable 4: 500 years of luso-italian history: the archive of Our Lady of Loreto in Lisbon
Nunziatella Alessandrini
Short abstract
This project, financed by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, aims to recover, organize, and make public the precious documental fund of the Our Lady of Loreto Church in Lisbon collecting old memories of the Italian community over 5 centuries.
Long abstract
The project began in October 2014. Step 1: General Cataloguing and digitization of sixteenth and seventeenth century documents had the support of FCG under the call, Projects of Recover, Treatment and Organization of Documentary Collections and will be concluded at the end of May 2015.
The important documentary collection consists of loose documents of immeasurable value for the most part unpublished, (since the fifteenth century until the mid-twentieth century), and of manuscript books produced by the Blessed Sacrament Brotherhood of Loreto Church.
The project's goals:
1) Study of the institution 2) archival classification and description 3) Digitization of the documentation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and use of an open source software archival description ICA-AtoM, developed under the auspices of the International Council of Archives and used by international institutions.
