帝国商品 是英国科学院的研究项目, 成立于2007年, and from 2016-2021 hosted by the 伦敦大学’s Institute of Latin American Studies. It is currently hosted by the University of Birmingham’s Centre for Modern and Contemporary 历史 in collaboration with the 伦敦大学’s new 拉丁美洲中心 & 加勒比研究.
The mutually reinforcing relationship between ‘commodities’ and ’empires’ has long been recognised. Over the last six centuries the quest for profits has driven imperial expansion, with the global trade in commodities fuelling the ongoing industrial revolution. 这些"帝国商品", which became transnationally mobilised in ever larger quantities, 包括食物(e.g. wheat, rice, bananas); industrial crops (e.g. cotton, rubber, linseed and palm oils); stimulants (e.g. sugar, tea, coffee, cocoa, tobacco, opium); and ores (e.g. 锡、铜、金、钻石). Their expanded production and global movements brought vast spatial, 社会, economic and cultural changes to both metropoles and colonies.
在帝国商品项目中, we explore the networks through which particular commodities circulated both within and in the spaces between empires, with particular attention to local processes originating in Africa, 亚洲, 加勒比海, 和拉丁美洲, which significantly influenced the outcome of the encounter between the world economy and regional societies. We adopt a comparative approach and explore the experiences of peoples subjected to different imperial hegemonies.
As well as organising regular international workshops, 帝国商品 publishes a 工作文件系列 that provides a space in which those whose research is related to the aims of the project can publish their findings in a form that enables rapid dissemination in the public domain. The Project has in addition led to a number of publications, 包括 edited collections 《商品、帝国与全球历史，特刊 全球历史杂志, 4:1 (2009); The Global and Local 历史 of 帝国商品 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); and the forthcoming 商品历史手册 (牛津大学出版社).
The project is also engaged in exploring the use of a more diverse range of audio-visual media for the sharing of research in an accessible manner. 它承载着 商品历史网络平台, which was made possible with AHRC funding and offers a public forum for the sharing of historical research, news and resources; it sponsored, 同样是AHRC的资助, 纪录片的制作, 古巴:生活在飓风之间, 西班牙语版本, 法语和英语, and an accompanying book of the same title, 有西班牙语和英语版本, 所有都在开放获取上 专用网站; and an audio series of the Working 论文 is slowly being developed.
帝国商品 has been instrumental in the development of a number of international research collaborations, 包括 商品前沿倡议, 全球烟草历史网络, 商品与反商品, 商品和移民.
For further information about 帝国商品, please contact Jonathan Curry-Machado (乔恩.curry-machado@tvandgumareawesome.com).
参观 商品帝国项目网站 更多细节和新闻.