Trading Diasporas in the Eastern Mediterranean (1250-1450)
Dr. phil. des. Georg Christ
The research group ‘Trading Diasporas’ analyses how trading diasporas such as Venetian, Jewish, Greek or Persian communities, shaped the cultural boundaries in the late medieval Eastern Mediterranean.
Trading diasporas stood at the intersection of Mediterranean civilisations and were shaped by transcultural trade contacts as much as by “cultural” antagonisms. They acted as vanguards of their entities in foreign lands and thus mediated between “cultures” by constantly redrawing linguistic, legal, and economic borders.
The research group studies tensions within and between different diasporic groups and their “host” societies. We are interested in how these diasporas positioned themselves between their homeland and their host environment in the context of religious warfare and the concepts of jihad and crusade. To what extent was their internal organisation shaped by transcultural exchange and cultural antagonisms? Did they develop into parallel societies or did the merge with their host culture? Ultimately, our research and public events are intended to contribute to a better understanding of historic and modern societies between transcultural integration and antagonistic conception of ‘cultures’.
Trading diasporas stood at the intersection of Mediterranean civilisations and were shaped by transcultural trade contacts as much as by “cultural” antagonisms. They acted as vanguards of their entities in foreign lands and thus mediated between “cultures” by constantly redrawing linguistic, legal, and economic borders.
The research group studies tensions within and between different diasporic groups and their “host” societies. We are interested in how these diasporas positioned themselves between their homeland and their host environment in the context of religious warfare and the concepts of jihad and crusade. To what extent was their internal organisation shaped by transcultural exchange and cultural antagonisms? Did they develop into parallel societies or did the merge with their host culture? Ultimately, our research and public events are intended to contribute to a better understanding of historic and modern societies between transcultural integration and antagonistic conception of ‘cultures’.
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