Connected History

« "Uku kuarasy sẽmba koty : là-bas, du côté du soleil levant". Les Martyrs du Japon expliqués en langue guarani par un cacique prédicateur (Réductions jésuites du Paraguay, XVIIIe siècle) », Séminaire d'Histoire des Mondes Ibériques et Ibéro-Américains organisé par François Godicheau (UT2J – FRAMESPA), Toulouse, Univesité Toulouse Jean Jaurès, 25 février 2019

URL: https://www.hsozkult.de/literaturereview/id/forschungsberichte-2021

The essay discusses recent German and English literature to offer readers an introduction to current research on early modern empires. At times, the essay cuts across the set timeframe (c. 1500-1800) to better contextualise the specific features of empires before the nineteenth century. The essay argues that “empire” as an analytical tool has lost its edge as a result of a positive trend: discussions that increasingly transcend national historiographies. ‘Empire’ retains its value as an analytical category for a specific form of political rule in the early modern period whenever it can also be reconstructed from the language of the sources. Combining comparative and connected approaches to empires through a focus on historical agents can serve this purpose and make up for the weaknesses of comparative and connected history individually. A comparative history of empire needs to retain tensions between structural limitations and individual limitations to decision-making. To that end it should compare imperial rule not just with alike forms, but also with other comparable early modern power relations in ‘dynastic agglomerates’ and ‘composite monarchies’. A connected history, by contrast, needs to pay close attention to the power relations that limited room for decisions and hampered imperial connections. Only if historians explicitly consider the personal connections between early modern subjects, research about empires can transcend narratives of modernisation and differentiation. According to the recent literature, those who made empire were not driven by power, prospects of financial gain, and ideas of cultural superiority alone: Ties of patronage, family, friendship, dynasty and religion crucially shaped early modern empires.

This is the abstract of the DEaMoNs (Digital Early Modern Networks) research group. The attached poster describes the first of the group's activities: a series of workshops hosted at the University of Verona and the University Sapienza of Rome, given by DEaMoNs members and organized by Alessandra Celati and Federica Favino.

We consider history as the ground where different fields of human endeavours interact and complement each other. Following the assumption that reality is relational, we believe that a historiographical approach based on the examination of historical networks, and other kinds of connections, can be useful in promoting interdisciplinary research perspectives. These in turn can help scholars to bring about original, both global and micro, connected histories, putting the past into context.

Networks have always operated in complex societies, being a crucial component of the life in the past. With this in mind, we focus on the early modern world as a particularly fruitful field for our scholarly mission.

The 'DEaMoNs' research group has been founded as an international platform which brings together scholars focussing on early modern connections with a digital component. Indeed, interdisciplinary research projects, dealing with a large amount of interrelated data, can benefit dramatically by the usage of sophisticated technologies for the synoptic representation of a given relational phenomenon and for the exploration of historical data.

DEaMoNs works on the promotion of collective research projects; on the encounter (and possible fusion) between different spheres of the historical analysis; on the dissemination of the scientific results achieved by the members (through the organization of seminars and conferences); on the organization of workshops and other training activities about DH tools, networks reconstruction and connected histories.

Finally, DEaMoNs is meant to bridge the European and the American academic contexts, favouring a process of mutual transfer of knowledge across the Atlantic and enhancing networking possibilities for the members.

The DEaMoNs research group is based at the University of Verona. If you are interested in getting involved and taking part in its activities you can email the coordinator, sending your CV and a list of publications, at: alessandra.celati83@gmail.com

Banditry, as Eric Hobsbawm has said in his path-breaking studies, was an archaic and pre-political phenomenon that, strikingly, occurred in abnormally large numbers during the nineteenth and twentieth century. While it has often been seen as marginal for national, let alone global histories, banditry can provide a new perspective for debating social history from a global perspective. Episodes of banditry emerged in different areas of the world. Hobsbawm points to the universality and uniformity of these phenomena across the globe, which were not the result of cultural diffusion but the 'reflection of similar situations within peasant societies, whether in China, Peru, Sicily, the Ukraine, or Indonesia'. Banditry emerged in response to the power of outside authority and capital, dynamics that had global impact and ramifications. It interested those areas where states and empires were becoming more present, less 'visitors', as had been the case for pre-modern polities, and more 'permanent residents': they extracted taxes, enrolled their inhabitants for military service, extended and improved the policing of the population, were able to gather more sophisticated information about those within their borders and controlled wandering and mobile people. In this context, banditry arose out of peasant discontent against worsening economic conditions and changes in the structures of labour and capital, often merging to large social movements as was the case for the Brigantaggio in post-unification Italy. 

Mountains, like banditry, have long been considered at the margins of grand historical dynamics. Yet, the two were intrinsically linked in their importance for shaping empire and states. The history of bandits, brigands and outlaws was often that of mountains and vice versa. These environments have provided refuge for run-aways but they have also been important sites where movements of protests and rebellion originated, in the forms of religious heterodoxies (e.g. Lazzarettists) or anti-colonial movements (e.g. Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan). At the same time, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, mountain regions in nation-states and empires were areas where states expanded their powers, frontiers drawn and competing polities fought off. Here, it was the extension of state power and law that 'made’ bandits as in mountain regions the global dynamics that often ignited these episodes were felt particularly strongly, for example in the case of the dismantling of the commons (also a global phenomenon at this time). As a result, large numbers of unskilled labourers and landless peasants departed mountain regions, as in the case of modern Italy, and were increasingly drawn into the global flows of migration between the second half of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century.

This paper builds on Hobsbawm’s work on banditry and re-thinks it in the context of the debates and approaches of global history. I take the case studies of Italy’s war against the Brigantaggio in both southern Italy and the Eritrean colony during the post-unification decades and link them to the global context that gave rise to comparable movements around the world. The paper thinks about protesting and rebellious mountain people across the globe as protagonists and agents of the transformations that have shaped the modern world. It addresses questions such as: what were the global transformations that ignited banditry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries? How did bandits interact with them? How, in turn, were they shaped by global dynamics? What was the role of bandits as promotors of global integration processes? In this way, the paper aims to evaluate whether a global approach to banditry allows us to think about subalterns as a class with global connotations.

This article analyzes the relations and circulations among seventeenth century Fifth-Monarchy interpretations and the role of the New World in the Last Reign of the World. In this millenarian network, the Portuguese Jewish Community in Amsterdam emerges as a possible axis which  articulated the eschatological hopes and colonial interests in the Portuguese and English empires. Considering this entangled world of prophetical expectations, it seeks to bring together sides that were held at bay from each other by scholarship. In order to do that, it traces the connections among the Portuguese-Dutch rabbi Menasseh Ben Israel and groups of both sides of Christianity.

Osmanlı Rum cemaatinin 18. yüzyıl Avrupası ile kurduğu iletişim kanallarının en önemlilerinden biri olan ticarileşme, çoğu zaman milliyetçiliğin entelektüel altyapısının oluştuğu bir safha olarak değerlendirilmektedir. Bu yaklaşıma göre, o dönemde Avrupa’da, değişimi öngören Aydınlanma fikirlerinden haberdar olmaya başlayan Rum tüccarları, Osmanlı düzenine alternatif bir dünya hayal etmeye başlamışlardır. Bu makale bu meseleleri, Teselya’nın yükselen yerleşim yerlerinden biri olan Zagora’dan çıkıp farklı Osmanlı ve Avrupa liman kentlerinde ticaret yaptıktan sonra Amsterdam’a yerleşen, burada biriktirdiği servet ile de Zagora’ya geri dönüp burada bir kütüphane kuran Ioannis Pringos üzerinden incelemektedir. Makale, Aydınlanma fikirlerinin Osmanlı Rumları arasında nüfuz etme biçimlerinin Avrupa’nın olduğu kadar Osmanlı dünyasının dinamikleri de göz önünde tutulduğunda tam anlamıyla kavranabileceği fikrini savunmaktadır. Dolayısıyla, tamamen Avrupa’daki entelektüel hareketlerin etkisi altında olduğu varsayılan Pringos gibi Osmanlı gayrimüslimleri hem Avrupa hem de Osmanlı bağlamlarında incelendiğinde Aydınlanmanın Osmanlı dünyasındaki erken etkilerinin bazı durumlarda son derece sınırlı olduğu görülmektedir.

I n t e r s e c t i o n s Interdisciplinary Studies in Early Modern Culture I n t e r s e c t i o n s Interdisciplinary Studies in Early Modern Culture This volume sets out to explore the world of domestic devotions and is premised on the assumption that the home was a central space of religious practice and experience throughout the early modern world. The contributions to this book, which deal with themes dating from the fif-teenth to the eighteenth century, tell of the intimate relationship between humans and the sacred within the walls of the home. The volume demonstrates that the home cannot be studied in isolation: the sixteen essays, that encompass religious history, the histories of art and architecture, material culture, literary history, and social and cultural history, instead point individually and collectively to the porosity of the home and its connectedness with other institutions and broader communities. This series of publications brings together new material on well-considered themes within the wide area of Early Modern Studies. Contributions may come from any of the disciplines within the humanities: history, art history, literary history, book history, church history, social history, history of the humanities, of the theatre, of cultural life and institutions. Each volume addresses a single theme and articles are selected for the freshness of their approach and for the extent to which they elucidate aspects of the theme of the volume. The themes are carefully selected on the basis of a number of criteria, the most important of which are that they should address issues about which there is a lively debate within the international community of scholars and that they should be of interest to a variety of disciplines.

This article explores the concept of West Asia in relationship to recent work in the global history of Islam that points toward the existence of transregional arenas of historic significance that incorporate many of Asia’s Muslim societies. Recent anthropological work has also brought attention to the dynamic nature of the relations and cultural connections between peoples living in regions that once formed part of expansive arenas of interaction yet were divided by imperial and national boundaries, as well as the ideological conflicts of the Cold War. Against this political and historical context, we deploy West Asia as a geographical scale that brings to light interconnected forms of life that have been silenced by traditional area studies scholarship. We compare our field work experiences with two different networks made-up of Muslims that span different axis of Muslim Asia. We argue that “West Asia” brings attention to influential connections, communities, and circulations that both bear the imprint of deeper pasts as well as the influence of emergent and shifting transregional dynamics in the present. Furthermore, by emphasizing connective dynamics that move beyond the rather conventional focus on east–west relationships, the category West Asia also encourages scholarship to highlight multiple yet hitherto little explored inter-Asian north–south connections.

Este trabalho visa cartografar as continuidades e transformações que marcam os modos de viver, fazer e saber na História recente da comunidade  ribeirinha de Igarapé Grande, localizada na ilha  de João Pilatos, em Ananindeua (Pará), através
das narrativas de seus moradores. Mais especificamente: a gênese, o trabalho, o transporte, o lazer, a cura, o imaginário e a educação; sempre considerando as linguagens e saberes locais como autônomos e aliados da investigação histórica. Dessa forma, aponto a  percepção da gênese e do processo histórico da  comunidade de Igarapé Grande nas narrativas de  seus narradores; definir a relação histórica da comunidade com os demais distritos e comunidades da região (Icoaraci, Outeiro, Benfica, Murinin, Curuçambá e outros) e o modo de vida da região metropolitana de Belém; e compreender como as formas de saber e de  trabalhar vêm reagindo frente as transformações  que os sujeitos locais vivenciam no social, no ambiental e no cultural. Ao longo deste trabalho  busquei responder algumas questões que se constituíram como fios condutores da pesquisa:  Como os moradores de Igarapé Grande vêem e  contam a sua História? De que forma a proximidade da ilha com o modo de vida urbano  de Belém e Ananindeua, tem afetado a sociabilidade da localidade? O que muda e o que  permanece em termos de traballho e cultura dos moradores de Igarapé Grande? Para tanto, realizei  entrevistas orais posteriormente transcritas, acrescentando-lhes  a  revisão  das  pesquisas  já  realizadas  sobre  a comunidade  e  um  viés etnográfico  pautado  na  observação  em campo,  na conversação  informal  e  na  produção  de  fotografias. O  trabalho  foi  organizado  como uma  viagem,  e  dividido  em  três  capítulos:  a  partida  (apresentação  da  bagagem teórico-metodológica  e  do  destino-objeto, a contemplação do lugar da comunidade e seu  município),  a  chegada, (as  narrativas  dos  moradores  sobre  sua  gênese  e  seu presente)  e  a  estadia  (apontamento  mais  profundo  das  transformações-continuidades  nos  diversos  âmbitos  da  vida  em  Igarapé  Grande).  A “estadia” revela uma  comunidade  que,  ao contrário do  que  foi  pensado  no  começo  da  pesquisa, sempre  esteve  e  ainda  está em transformação,  sendo  através  da  proximidade  com  a região  metropolitana  de  Belém,  historicamente  muito  mais  moderna  do  que tradicional.

"La mobilisation immobile : une campagne de suffrages spirituels contre les Anglais et les Turcs dans les missions jésuites du Paraguay (1692-1693)", Doctoriales de l’École Doctorale TESC organisée par ses représentants doctorants, Toulouse, Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès, 20 novembre 2018

Introducción

Durante las primeras décadas del siglo veinte, en un contexto de revalorización del pasado hispánico y del arte colonial como parte integrante de la historia latinoamericana, producto de diversos factores políticos, económicos, sociales y culturales, fueron editados diversos ensayos y estudios monográficos, coherentes con ciertas posiciones revisionistas en el campo de la historia, como los estudios de José Torre Revello, Fernando Márquez Miranda, Guillermo Furlong. Posteriormente, los historiadores del arte Adolfo Luis Ribera y Héctor Schenone, a partir de un trabajo exhaustivo de materiales visuales y escritos, impulsaron una renovación de las investigaciones mediante una confrontación entre el documento escrito y la obra artística. La literatura específica actual, si bien incorpora el análisis de los datos iconográficos, estilísticos e históricos, presenta al arte colonial como un arte integrado a las formas culturales más amplias de la sociedad de la época y que excede su función estética. En consonancia con estas líneas, el presente artículo explora los años rioplantenses del orfebre José de Boqui, trabajo que forma parte de una investigación mayor sobre la labor de los artífices tardocoloniales y sus conexiones con redes de intercambio y circulación de saberes. En este sentido, se expondrán en primer término sus años iniciales en Buenos Aires, Argentina aportando nuevos datos sobre su arribo a la ciudad, antes de su partida hacia el Perú.