Portugal has been virtually absent from the vibrant and international debate on the roots and determinants of health inequalities in the 19th and 20th centuries. The few studies conducted on death causes have been based on aggregated data with small territorial disaggregation, focusing on the period after 1920, when the ICD was already implemented. Therefore, we lack a micro-analytical and intergenerational approach to understand to what extent – and how far – individuals' geographic origin, their socio-economic conditions, and public health policies contributed to their longevity. The city of Oporto, a major port city in northern Portugal, is particularly interesting due to its migratory history, with individuals returning from various parts of the Portuguese empire (notably the so-called "Brazilians"), as well as foreigners, such as Galicians and even the British. Furthermore, it is a relevant case study in the European context, as it sheds light on the process of consolidation and development of Liberalism in more peripheral countries (such as Portugal, Romania or Spain, only to mention a few), whose gap with leading countries began to widen precisely in the second half of the 19th century. The empirical data collected for this project is based on burial certificates available online for the entire Porto municipality. These are nominative sources with information on individuals' parentage, profession, place of birth, place of death, and cause of death (coded according to official nomenclatures), totaling approximately 4 million deaths. A team formed by researchers from the GREAT LEAP network affiliated in Portugal and a group of undergraduate and graduate students from Iscte's history program is already engaged in this exciting research.    

This project will address two different historiographical issues using so far untapped sources and providing tools to analyze them. These are global wage comparisons and the nature of labour relations in the early Luso-Indian Ocean world before the politico-military dominance was firmly established by the Europeans. Research team: Pim de Zwart (WUR) (cood.), Paulo Teodoro de Matos (CIES-IUL/ISCTE-IUL), Jan Lucassen (IISH) and Hélder Carvalhal (CIDEUS/UÉvora).

Economic inequalities, social exclusion, discrimination against minorities, cultural resistance and disruption of social cohesion – these are all key concerns in the current European and global agenda, both in scholarly work and policy-making. RESISTANCE aims at analysing these issues by focusing on the processes of resistance carried out by social actors that have been historically disadvantaged, discriminated against and dominated. By using a concept of resistance that connects continued and less visible forms of resistance, cultural dissent and violent revolts, the ultimate goal of RESISTANCE is to produce a reinterpretation of the universe of “the dominated”. RESISTANCE will provide an understanding of how these actors could influence processes of social change, either by opening up 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 uses the past as a laboratory for the analysis. Focusing on the former Portuguese and Spanish empires, this project privileges a comparative approach in time and space in order to investigate an extended time frame (sixteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries) and a spatial framework that encompasses Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia. The past experiences of their societies, strongly grounded on ethnic, social, economic, cultural, religious, and gender inequality, still shape current political and social dynamics. RESISTANCE is led by the University of Évora, and made up of seven beneficiary universities in Portugal, Spain and Germany, plus six universities in third countries (Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Cape Verde, Mexico and USA). In addition to academic-type deliverables, RESISTANCE proposes an extensive range of dissemination and communication outputs specifically targeted at wide-ranging audiences (schools, museums, international agencies, think tanks, policy-makers, and more).