Panel 08: Gendered Experiences of Movement: (In)Mobility, Gender & Work in the Early Modern World (EN)

Chairs:

Eugénia Rodrigues, CHUL-Centre for History of the University of Lisbon

Verónica Gallego Manzanares, Univerisità degli Studi di Padova

Mariana Meneses Muñoz, CHAM-NOVA FCSH

Pablo Hernández Sau, CHAM-NOVA FCSH

Hélder Carvalhal, KNAW, Amsterdam

Amelia Almorza Hidalgo, Universidad Pablo de Olavide

In the Early Modern Iberian worlds, experiences of mobility were deeply shaped by gender and its intersection with labour. The movement of Portuguese royal officials and Spanish soldiers across imperial spaces was not neutral but inflected by ideals of masculinity and social hierarchies, including royal service, marriage, and family networks. Similarly, the mobility—and immobility—of women and children were conditioned by gendered power relations, occupational status, and labour structures. Women’s mobility across the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, or the Indian Ocean was deeply entangled with their marital status, familial ties, and the work they performed or were expected to perform. Within urban spaces such as Lisbon, Madrid, Naples, Goa, or Lima, the movement of individuals was shaped not only by gender but by race, class, and occupation. A Black enslaved woman and a white domestic servant, for example, inhabited and navigated the city in fundamentally different ways, producing distinct trajectories and embodied experiences of mobility. Over the past decade, renewed attention to gender, labour history, and mobility studies has highlighted how movement regimes varied according to sex, age, legal status, and social dependency. This panel brings together case studies that examine and compare differentiated patterns of mobility and stasis across the Early Modern Iberian worlds. By tracing the intersections of gender, labour, and mobility, it aims to challenge homogenised narratives of imperial circulation and explore.

Keywords: Mobility; Locality; Gender; Labour; Iberian Worlds