MEMOIRS focuses on the intergenerational memories of the children and grandchildren of those involved in the decolonization processes of colonies held by France, Portugal and Belgium. Through interviews of this second and third generation, and a comparative analysis of the cultures influenced by the postmemory of the colonial wars and the end of empire, Europe's postcolonial heritage will be reinterrogated, and a new understanding of the contemporary continent will be developed. At the heart of the project is a desire to comprehend the effects of Europe's postimperial diversity through postmemories of colonial praxis. The project is interdisciplinary, bringing together specialists from literary and cultural studies, arts, history, sociology and migration studies. MEMOIRS aims to maximize the impact of its findings through broad web, open-access publications and an itinerant artistic exhibit that captures multiple aspects of the representations of postmemory, and fosters a meaningful North-South dialogue.

The main objective of POLITICS is to innovate knowledge on anti-racism that brings about a greater understanding of how historically rooted injustices are being challenged by institutions and grassroots movements. Considering the centrality and mutual influence of Europe and Latin America in the global processes of racial formation, POLITICS will develop an inter-disciplinary and comprehensive approach towards two core goals: (a) the analysis of processes of knowledge production about ‘race’ and (anti-)racism in the spheres of (inter)national governmental politics, State universities and grassroots movements; (b) the examination of diverse paths of denunciation and collective mobilisation against everyday racism concerning police practice and representations in the mass media. POLITICS embraces a multilevel analysis and information-oriented selection of case-studies in three interrelated research streams: (i) Global, regional and state-sponsored political frameworks and public policies; (ii) Cultures of scholarship and the study of racism and (post)colonialism at State universities; (iii) Tackling everyday racism: processes of denunciation, political mobilisation and case-law concerning police practice, and racist representations in the media and mass media. The research challenges the shortcomings of evaluative comparisons and the selection of research contexts enables interrogating the relations between the global, national and local levels. They include the Organisation of American States, the European Union and national and local politics in Brazil, Peru, Portugal and Spain. Qualitative research and data collection engage with race critical theories, critical discourse analysis and participatory methods that consider power/knowledge at their core. POLITICS will unravel the configuration of different notions of dignity, justice and equality resulting from anti-racist struggles and policy interventions and their significance for envisaging decolonial horizons.

Animals and plants feature prominently in cultural productions about the Amazon, testifying to the centrality of the region’s natural environment both for local populations and for the earth’s biosphere. The key hypothesis of ECO is that texts (broadly understood to include mythology, folk tales, the lyrics of songs, essays, literature, travel writings, etc.), cinema and art about this area highlight the ways in which non-human beings dynamically shape human cultural life. The project’s main challenge is to resort both to Amazonian thought and to the academic field of ecocriticism to assess how human cultural productions about Amazonia lend a voice to animals and plants. ECO develops the concept of zoophytography to describe the inscription of non-humans in texts, films and artworks, thus decentering humanity as the sole source of meaning-making. Research stream I. “Amazonian Zoophytography” formulates a definition of this notion and traces its roots to Indigenous and riverine epistemologies and to Western philosophy. Through archival research, ECO will then gather and analyze sources that portray Amazonian animals and plants from the beginning of the twentieth century onwards in two other research streams: II. “Animal Talk: Zoography Spelled Out” focuses on the articulation of animals in cultural productions about the Amazon; III. “Flora’s Voice: Phytographic Conversations” analyzes plant inscription in texts, cinema and artworks that question the role of vegetal life as a passive form of existence. ECO will make a significant contribution to the environmental humanities, offering an Amazonian perspective on ecocriticism, environmental philosophy and post-colonial studies. By creating a deeper understanding of conceptions of Amazonian fauna and flora, the project will reveal the interdependence of humans and non-humans, draw attention to environmental degradation in Amazonia and uncover more equitable views on animals and plants from the region.

In recent years the global financial crisis and the consequent austerity measures have triggered protest movements all over the world. In Southern Europe there has been a strong wave of mobilizations directed to defend public welfare provision. These anti-austerity movements have been characterized by a call for social justice framed in solidarity and inclusion, against the perception of a reduced capacity by the state of addressing citizens’ needs. This low level of trust in institutional politics has triggered the creation of alternative spaces of deliberative and participatory democracy, directed to experiment with different political expressions. A crucial question is whether and how this claim for different forms of democracy has been translated by social movements into organizational forms that bring increased democracy also into the economic sphere. In order to address this still underinvestigated issue, AGORA focuses on those entrepreneurial activities that originate from the civil society, in this specific case as a direct expression of anti-austerity movements, that are characterized by the prevalence of social objectives over profit maximization. AGORA will investigate the organizational dynamics and characteristics of Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) organizations that emerged in Spain and Portugal in the aftermath of the financial crisis. The general objective of AGORA will be to assess how SSE is politically framed by investigating the linkages between social movements and SSE. Starting from a social movement perspective, AGORA will adopt an interdisciplinary approach, by finding synergies between social movement scholarship, economic anthropology, organization studies and SSE scholarship (which is per se interdisciplinary), with the aim of integrating different approaches proposed by these disciplines.