New Christian Materiality, 1450-1750

ongoing

New Christian Materiality, 1450-1750. The New Christian trading elite, descending from Jewish communities forced to convert between 1391 and 1498 in Iberia, was at the forefront of intercontinental trade from the late fifteenth to the early eighteenth centuries. They became experts on material culture, sourced commodities from different continents, and developed markets. This project will answer the question: how did New Christian expertise in material culture influence patterns of consumption where they lived and traded? This question addresses a historiographical gap between material culture, consumption, and social agents involved in intercontinental trade. The hypothesis that undergirds this project is that the liminal condition in which the New Christians were placed – forced to convert but never fully integrated under constant suspicion and prosecution from the Inquisition – favoured their diaspora, resilient networks, and innovative behaviour across continents. The four pathways framed by the key orientations of this project will be: a) commodities and expertise; b) agents and markets; c) environment; and d) gender. It is a global project, based on extensive archival research, that will identify how expertise was built, links between production and trade were established, gendered consumption developed, and houses were built and decorated for enhanced status and marketing. It will place social and individual agency at the core of research. It will bring together economic, social, and art history, geography, gender studies, environmental studies, and the sociology of inequality. The focus will be on New Christian materiality and its influence on consumption, keeping a critical view on environmental impact and the inequality the New Christians reacted to but also produced. It is ultimately a transformative project: for the first time, an ethnic group will be the object of a global project of research concerning material culture and patterns of consumption.