Networks, contact zones and the trans-local dimensions of the imperial Mediterranean

Abstract

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 emigre 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.