Events
Histórias de mulheres indígenas na América Portuguesa, e suas agências entrelaçadas nos dias atuais, a 17 de dezembro às 20h00 CET
A apresentação propõe uma reflexão sobre as experiências históricas e as agências das mulheres indígenas na América Portuguesa a partir da Metodologia Insurgente e interepstêmicas, considerando o seu protagonismo nas dinâmicas culturais políticas, sociais e interétnicas do período colonial em diálogo com o tempo histórico êmico e nãosó linear. A partir de uma perspetiva crítica da história indígena, procura evidenciar as estratégias de agências, negociação e ação mobilizadas por essas mulheres Indígenas em contextos marcados pelas relações de poder coloniais. Ao articular temporalidades históricas distintas, a análise interroga as continuidades e as transformações das experiências indígenas, estabelecendo conexões com as memórias, as lutas e as formas de agência das mulheres indígenas na contemporaneidade. Deste modo, pretende contribuir para o questionamento de narrativas historiográficas que invisibilizaram a participação indígena, especialmente das mulheres originárias, na construção da história e para o reconhecimento da pluralidade de sujeitos, experiências e saberes que atravessam o passado colonial e o presente.
Las vecinas del valle de los Dos Arroyos: hechicerías, malefícios y encantos en el Paraguay colonial, el 10 de diciembre a las 18h00 CET
En el presente trabajo se indagará la forma en que se condenó el delito de hechicería, en un espacio fronterizo del virreinato del Perú, tras la denuncia recaída sobre cuatro mujeres con perfiles distintos, que residían o se encontraban circunstancialmente en el valle de los Dos Arroyos, paraje de la jurisdicción de Asunción del Paraguay 1 . El oficio creado por el alcalde de la santa hermandad, el 17 de julio de 1722, luego de una comisión extrajudicial realizada por autoridades del valle, dio origen a una Sumaria que fue dirimida por la justicia capitular de Asunción. A partir del mismo, se analizará el procedimiento judicial teniendo en cuenta los contenidos de las confesiones, las defensas y las sentencias para dar cuenta de las diversas miradas y los factores transversales a las imputaciones de hechicería, tales como el género, las relaciones de poder y el origen social. Partimos de la idea de que el caso estudiado expresa una reapropiación particular y situacional de la práctica/delito de hechicería según el lugar de enunciación de las partes involucradas. Desde el punto de vista metodológico, nos centraremos en un solo expediente dada su enorme riqueza, densidad y potencialidad analítica. Interesa recuperar las palabras, terminologías y expresiones de las fuentes con el fin de abordar el tema desde la perspectiva de los actores sociales y aportar especificidad al tema.
Mulheres escravizadas em Benguela: acesso e reivindicação de liberdade (1850-1878), a 26 de Novembro às 15h00 CEST
Esta comunicação investiga as experiências de mulheres submetidas à escravidão na região de Benguela, com foco nas formas como acederam, ou tentaram aceder, por meios legais, sociais e institucionais, à reivindicação da sua liberdade. O estudo insere-se num movimento mais amplo de renovação da História Social, que deslocou o olhar das grandes estruturas para os percursos de homens e mulheres comuns e integrou na análise sujeitos que durante muito tempo permaneceram afastados da narrativa histórica. Importa, neste sentido, compreender as experiências destas mulheres a partir das marcas que deixaram na documentação e das diferentes circunstâncias em que conseguiram fazer chegar as suas reivindicações às autoridades.
Partimos, por isso, da ideia de que não está em causa saber se estas mulheres escravizadas falaram ou permaneceram em silêncio, uma vez que, em diferentes circunstâncias, fizeram-se ouvir e deixaram marcas das suas experiências. O desafio reside em reconhecer essas vozes e criar condições para um diálogo intercultural atento às relações de poder, autoridade, posição e saber que atravessam a produção do conhecimento histórico (HEINTZE, 2007, p. 559). Neste sentido, importa considerar também as condições que permitiram que determinadas experiências chegassem até nós, bem como as mediações que interferiram na sua inscrição documental.
Neste sentido, a investigação parte dos processos judiciais da Comarca de Benguela para acompanhar situações de escravização, reescravização e disputas em torno da condição jurídica de mulheres escravizadas, livres e libertas. Os argumentos podiam reflectir a intervenção dos representantes legais, os depoimentos podiam surgir incompletos e determinados acontecimentos assumir maior relevo em função dos interesses das partes envolvidas. Ao depararmo-nos com os processos relativos aos embarques clandestinos e às tentativas de exportação ilegal de pessoas escravizadas, vemos, por exemplo, que o tráfico permaneceu uma preocupação constante das autoridades ao longo das décadas de 1850 e 1860, o que permite compreender as dificuldades que continuavam a marcar a repressão dessas práticas.
A nossa intenção com esta comunicação não consiste em formular generalizações, tendo em conta que as experiências aqui analisadas dizem respeito a um contexto específico da sociedade de Benguela. Ao longo de cada caso, acompanharão igualmente os subsídios legais que deram forma e sustentação às contendas analisadas nesta investigação.
Nota Biográfica:
Priscila Catimba é Mestranda em História do Império Português (NOVA FCSH), a sua investigação apoia-se sobretudo em fontes judiciais e administrativas, com particular atenção aos processos do Tribunal da Comarca de Benguela (TCB). No âmbito das Humanidades Digitais, trabalha com transcrição de documentação histórica através da plataforma Trasnkribus, bem como à digitalização e tratamentos de documentos.
PAST EVENTS
Wonder Colloquium 2025
Prof. Dr. Laura Beck Varela
May 25th 2025
In our first colloquium of 2025, we received legal historian Laura Beck Varela, a leading women’s legal historian based at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. In the session, Varela explained the core argument of her current research on the relationship between women and legal knowledge (saberes jurídicos), which proposes a new perspective on women’s legal history. She presented her arguments based on her extensive archival research which include sources ranging from the seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries, such as Clarissima luz para el que sabe, y remedio eficaz para el que ignora. Exposicion copiosa de los quatro libros de las Instituciones de
Justiniano, written by Velasco in 1736, the Institutes du Droit Civil pour les Dames, written by Johann Heinrich Kratzenstein in 1751, and even legal literature written by women, such as Traité de Droit Usuel, written by Marie Lacoste Gérin-Lajoie in Montreal in 1902. Based on these soruces, Varela addresses two types of questions: first, whether women could be considered “readers” or “users” of legal texts in general (encompassing both authoritative texts and pragmatic legalcompendia). Secondly, if there is a a distinct legal-literary genre, that of“legal literature for women”. The acquisition of “legal skills” or “notions of law” by women was largely perceived as an anomaly or a threat to the “disciplinary matrix” of jurisprudence. This perception was challenged in the context of broader debates on the education of women that circulated in the texts of the so-called querelle des femmes. Recent scholarship has focused on “legal literacy,” “legal intelligibility,” or the production and social uses of “popular legal knowledge”. However, in her presentation, she addresses these issues and their intersections with the history of women, thinking about categories such as legal literature “without” women, legal literature for women, and legal literature by women. By doing so, she rethinks the construction of law as a discipline (or its disciplinary matrix) from a gendered perspective, based on the changes for women’s rights and the social function of jurisprudence acquired in the 18th century.
Congresso internacional:
Resistencias y violencias en las sociedades atlánticas (ss. XVI-XX)
3 y 4 de abril de 2025
MESA 1. RESISTENCIAS Y VIOLENCIAS EN LAS RELACIONES DE PARENTESCOMESA 1.A. Salón de Grados (3ª planta)Modera: Margarita Torremocha Hernández (Universidad de Valladolid)11.20-11.40h. Luisa Stella de Oliveira Coutinho Silva (Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory): Hijos e hijas ilegítimas en la Capitanía de Paraíba: parentesco y relaciones familiares en la colonización de Brasil.
MESA 1.B. Sala de Juntas (2ª planta), Modera: Jesús Ángel Redondo Cardeñoso (Universidad de Valladolid)
11.20-11.40h. Vanessa Massuchetto (Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory): Agencias de mujeres y violencia de género: los usos de la justicia en casos de sevicias/malos tratos en la región platina (siglo XVIII).
Seminário Permanente 2026
Diálogos Coloniais
25 de Março a 27 de Março de 2026
Mesa Mulheres e Saberes no Império Português (XVI - XVIII) - 17 horas (Brasil)
Jessica O’Leary - Universidade da Austrália
Título: Saberes femininos indígenas no início do período colonial: desafios e caminhos
Vanessa Massuchetto - Instituto Max Planck
Título: Mulheres, saberes e conflitos: estudos de casos de delitos de luxúria na região Platina (xvii-xviii)
Luisa Stella Coutinho - Instituto Max Planck
Título: Mulheres, saberes e direito: literacia e práticas normativas no Japão (séculos XVI e XVII)
Mediador(a): Idelma Novais - SEMED/BC
Conferência com Prof. Dr. Liliana Pérez
(Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú)
em colaboração com o Projeto EDGES e a Universidade Nova
"Sin que de mi y de mis trabajos se tuviera memoria". Mujeres beneméritas en las expediciones de conquista y poblamiento del Perú colonial
Coloquio Internacional: Mujeres y delinquencia en el ambito doméstico en los mundos ibéricos e iberoamericanos
in collaboration with Professor Margarita Hernández Torremocha (Universidad de Valladolid) and Professor Isabel Drumond Braga (Universidade de Lisboa)
Over the three-days colloquium, we delved into diverse and complex nuances concerning women's actions, not only within domestic spaces but also across numerous settings in the towns and cities where they lived - whether in Japan, the Viceroyalty of Peru, New Spain, Tucumán, Spain, or Portugal. All the presentations critically analyzed the shared challenge we all face when searching for women in judicial and press sources: the (supposed) silences. Who among us, upon going to the archives to consult the documents, has not been told it would be difficult to find women in the collections we chose? These supposed silences in the sources, as Michelle Perrot once said, reflect much more the decisions not only of certain historiographies in addressing these topics but also of the archives' own functioning and their development and management practices.
Despite these challenges, all the presentations underscored the importance of reading these silences to uncover the lives of women. To access their emotions, resistances, agency, strategies, knowledge, notions of justice, the ways they interacted with institutions, and how they choose for alternative paths to improve their survival conditions. This event was an opportunity to share our perspectives on the agency of these women, breaking with views that confine them to the domestic space.
However, the interpretation of silences by our participants went far beyond this. It shed light on social dynamics beyond what is recorded in judicial, literary, and press documentation. Community or popular justice was another key point emphasized in the works presented here. It became clear how crucial the social dynamics in towns and cities were and how shared notions of justice among their inhabitants were central to the strategies women developed in conflict situations to achieve better living conditions. These dynamics included networks of sociability among women, which often served as support and protection networks when they faced violence within their own homes.
This brings us to another important point. We learned a great deal about how spaces of domesticity - households and recogimientos (whether as houses or institutions) - were complex locations in the early modern and modern periods. While these spaces embodied discourses of masculinity and femininity centered on the idea of a safe space, the home was often also a site of violence. In practice, these spaces had highly varied roles connected to women's experiences and the ways they developed their knowledge. Moreover, the presentations also taught us about the dynamics between home and urban spaces, demonstrating that, far from a rigid separation between the two, there was actually a deep interconnection.
Lastly, but certainly not least, it is important to emphasize that the works demonstrated the need to observe women's experiences, emotions, resistances, forms of agency, strategies, knowledge, and notions of justice through an intersectional lens. Social dynamics - defined by collective characteristics - were intrinsically linked to qualities and privileges attributed to women. Thus, the lives of African, Afro-descendant, Indigenous, and their mixed-race descendants (“mestizas,” “mulatas,” “chinas”), and rural inhabitants were marked by different dynamics of violence compared to elite white women from Lisbon or Spain, belonging to influential and wealthy families. These differences were evident not only in the violence experienced within homes but also in socially reproached practices, institutional treatment, and varying access to protection networks and opportunities for better living conditions.
Our most sincere gratitude to all the participants of this event. A special trank to Professors Margarita Torremocha and Isabel Drumond Braga for organizing this event with us.
Wonder Colloquia Series 2024
Wonder Colloquia Series 2024
Fifth Session
In our fifth colloquium, we had the privilege of hosting Professor Barbara Potthast from the University of Cologne, who delivered a captivating talk on the role of women as jefes de familia in 19th-century Paraguay.
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Wonder Colloquia Series 2024
Fourth Session
In our fourth colloquium, we were privileged to have Professor Isabel Drumond Braga from the Universidade de Lisboa deliver a captivating talk on the Portuguese Inquisition, enriching our understanding on women's experiences and inquisitorial procedures.
Wonder Colloquia Series 2024
Third Session
In our third colloquium, we were thrilled to welcome Professor Margarita Torremocha Hernández from the Universidad de Valladolid! Her lecture was a captivating blend of insight and intrigue, leaving us all inspired and eager for more.
Wonder Colloquia Series 2024
Second Session
In our second colloquium, we were privileged to host Professor Bethany Aram from Universidad Pablo de Olavide! The gathering was truly captivating, offering rich insights that ignited vibrant discussions among everyone present.
Wonder Colloquia Series 2024
First Session
Wonder Colloquia Series 2024
Check our Events
In our opening colloquium, we were delighted to host Professor Darlene Abreu-Ferreira from the University of Winnipeg! Her presence added a remarkable depth to our discussions, setting the stage for an inspiring series of events
Our Kick-Off Event:
Workshop Women's and Gender History in the Portuguese Empire: Global Knowledge Production, October 11th, 2023
Focused on lobal knowledge production, Women and Gender Relations in the Portuguese Empire brings together scholars and early career researchers working on women and gender in the Portuguese Empire in the early modern period. It will address several issues concerning women’s knowledge production, íncludingas normative, emotional, spiritual, and healing practices.
This will be the first activity hosted by the project Doing Women's Legal History in the Iberian Empires and the first event organized by the WONDER Network.
The workshop will be held on 11 October 2023 in hybrid mode, at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory and online. Professor Sarah Owens (College of Charleston) will be the opening keynote.