Networks, Contact Zones and the Trans-Local Dimensions of the Imperial Mediterranean

• Main Author: Gavin Murray-Miller
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Center for Near and Middle Eastern Studies 2019-12-01
• Series: Middle East : Topics & Arguments
• Subjects: The Ottoman Empire; The Mediterranean; France; Syria; Exile; Journalism
• Online Access: https://meta-journal.net/article/view/8075

Recent histories of the Mediterranean have drawn attention to the region’s internal diversity and provided a basis for considering the sea and its surrounding coastal areas as a place of trans-national entanglements. While this space was a contact zone between cultures, the dynamics and practices of Mediterranean imperialism frequently extended beyond a strict colonizer-colonized relationship. By examining networks forged through émigré communities, journalism, religion and finances, we can rethink concepts of the contact zone within a trans-imperial context. Assessing forms of engagement across and between imperial frontiers allows us to question the familiar metropole- periphery relationship and examine the connective webs that linked nodal cities and multiple peripheries spanning Europe, North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean.