Comparative History of Islands and Atlantic Archipelagos

Objectives

It is intended to deepen and compare the big problems of history of the Portuguese Atlantic Islands (Azores and Madeira), Spanish (Canary Islands) and Portuguese colonial rule (Cape Verde) to outline the historical profile of Macaronesia, sometimes with some approaches to the reality of Saint Tomé and Prince, in a period of time between the 15th and the 20th centuries. The study focuses on dominant themes as settlement, as the architecture of power, demographics, economic and social structures, without neglecting the integration of island in the dynamics of the Atlantic and continental inter-relations. In each seminar, the students will be driven to the analysis, reflection and discussion of concepts, structural issues and striking island history, taking into account the proximity and similarities and/or differences and specificities of each archipelago, providing, at the same time, research directions that support the work that they will do.

Program

Theme I - Around the discovery and the settlement: the beginnings of the human occupation of the Atlantic archipelagos.

Theme II - Power and governance of Islands: institutions and administration Forms.

Theme III - Islands economies and dynamics of the Atlantic: comparative perspective.

Theme IV – Social profile of Macaronesia: dominant and dominated.

Theme V – Population and migrations: immigration and emigration movements in the Atlantic Islands.

Theme VI – The Atlantic archipelagos in times of global conflict.

Teaching Methodologies

The seminars bring together the explanation of content, focused on exposure, with dialogue and oral participation of master students. Week-by-week, will be applied for research and readings of texts and documents which enabling moments of reflection, analysis, debate and confrontation of arguments and theses. In some seminars will be held at the practical work that propitiate, based on students intervention, the comparison between the different archipelagos.

Bibliography

AA.VV, Historia de Canarias, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Prensa Ibérica S.A., 1991.

ALBUQUERQUE, Luís de, SANTOS, Maria Emília, coord., História geral de Cabo Verde, Lisboa / Praia, Centro de Estudos de História e Cartografia Antiga – Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical / Instituto Nacional de Investigação Cultural, 1995-2002, 3 vols.

CARITA, Rui, História da Madeira. Funchal, Secretaria Regional da Educação, Juventude e Emprego, 1999, 5 vols.

MENESES, Avelino Freitas de, COSTA, João Paulo Oliveira e, coord., O reino, as ilhas e o mar oceano: estudos em homenagem a Artur Teodoro de Matos, Lisboa/Ponta Delgada, Centro de História de Além-Mar, 2007, 2 vols.

MATOS, Teodoro de, coord., A Colonização Atlântica, (Nova História da Expansão Portuguesa), Lisboa, Editorial Estampa, 2005, vol. III, tomos 1 e 2.

MATOS, Teodoro de, MENESES, Avelino de Freitas de, LEITE, José Guilherme Reis, dir., História dos Açores, Angra do Heroísmo, Instituto Açoriano de Cultura, 2008, 2 vols.