Iberian Entanglements: Legal Cultures of Captivity from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic

Objective

The IBERLAW project seeks to redefine early modern slavery by integrating Mediterranean and Atlantic systems into a unified, transregional framework. Challenging conventional binaries between “captivity” and “slavery,” it focuses on Iberian imperial contexts—particularly Lisbon, Seville, the Canary Islands, and Cartagena—to trace legal, social, and institutional continuities. Its four objectives include mapping transregional flows, comparing legal frameworks, modeling “transregional slavery,” and reflecting on freedom/unfreedom concepts. Methodologically, IBERLAW blends legal history, global history, gender analysis, and social-medical studies. It employs both micro- and macro-level approaches, utilizing archival sources such as judicial records, hospital logs, and port registers. The project also emphasizes gendered experiences of slavery and adheres to open science through digital dissemination of research data. Innovations include reconceiving slavery as a legal and institutional continuum, highlighting hybrid regimes and normative transfers, and employing a multi-scalar, interdisciplinary model. The project will create a digital platform and database to support future research and education. Globally, IBERLAW advances interconnected historiographies and contributes to scholarly, educational, and public discourse. Its international training plan, hosted at Roma Tre, Harvard, and the Max Planck Institute, promotes a dynamic exchange of knowledge, positioning the researcher as a leader in global slavery studies.