TransatlanticLab reexamines colonial and post-colonial interactions within the transatlantic space, using the Atlantic as a historical laboratory to explore colonial domination and racialist ideologies. The project focuses on how these dynamics, emerging from the plantation economy in the greater Caribbean, were maximised on both sides of the ocean. It addresses how race was constructed through economic practices, becoming an instrument of social oppression embedded in thought and language. Beyond traditional European mechanisms like slavery, forced labour, and racialism, the analysis includes their impacts on European territories. It rethinks colonial regimes, historicises European domination languages, and examinesintermediaries' rolesin maintaining colonial power. TransatlanticLab aims to surpass current decolonial theories and simplistic understandings of racism as merely a system of prejudiced morality that can be corrected through education. The hypothesis posits that racialism and racism evolved tied to the plantation economy, flourishing in the Americas and the Caribbean, and later used in European colonialism in Africa.

Our argument is multifold:

1. Colonialism roots in Africa and racism link to Americas' plantation systems.
2. Enslavement created "Black" and "White" hierarchical systems.
3. Pseudo-scientific racialism naturalised this system.
4. This ideology supported European racist politics by the "Scramble for Africa".
5. African colonialism depended on Caribbean plantation economies.
6. European scientific exploration and tropical determinism led to environmental racism.

TransatlanticLab will provide new insights into the long-term transformations of the tools of imperialism and colonialism. In order to comprehend the impact of these instruments of power, we will analyse them in their contemporary social contexts, considering history, geography and environment. This approach helps understand racial ideologies and colonial practices, and their impact.

Working group:

• Michela Elisa Craveri - Responsabile scientifico UCSC
• Dante José Liano
• Sara Carini
• Sonia Lucia Bailini
• Benedetta Belloni
• Alessandra Ceribelli

Partners:

• Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) - Spain (Coordinator)
• Universidad de Sevilla (US) - Spain
• Université Gustave Eiffel (UGE) - France
• Université des Antilles (UA) - France
• École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) - France
• Instituto de Ciências Sociais (ICS-UL) - Portugal
• Universität Mannheim (UMA) - Germany
• Fundación Ignacio Larramendi (FIL) - Spain
• Universidad Nova de Lisboa (UNL) - Portugal
• Centro de Estudos sobre África e Desenvolvimento (CEsA) - Portugal