Religion and Ethnicity. Transatlantic Mobility and Human Differentiation in Colonial Spanish America (E07*)

• Subject Area: Early Modern History
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 442261292

The project examines the relationship between religion and ethnicity in Latin American colonial societies, which were strongly characterized by transatlantic mobility and in which social differentiation was linked to religious concepts of purity and ethnic attributions. Focusing on four groups of mobile actors: Jews and Muslims who converted to Christianity, foreign Protestants, and enslaved Africans, the project analyses the relationship between spatial and social mobility, practices of exclusion and inclusion and the construction of belonging.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 1482: Studies in Human Differentiation
• Applicant Institution: Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
• Project Head: Privatdozent Dr. Thomas Weller