Introduction: 'the unity is submarine'

This critical introduction outlines the theoretical premises and the aims of an international multi-disciplinary research project scientifically coordinated by the author, which focuses on the migrations and metamorphoses of cultures, bodies, practices, and discourses as they move across and around the Atlantic zone, with particular reference to questions of identity, human rights, cosmopolitics, and mnemo-history. The contribution reviews the status of ‘Atlantic studies’ as a developing field of scientific inquiry and develops the notion of a ‘circumatlantic research paradigm’ for the study of Atlantic cultures, which is informed by a politics of knowledge involving a postcolonial stance and a cultural studies and new historical approach.