Opendata, web and dolomites

Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MedRoute (On the route of multiculturalism(s). Marking and hybridizing identities in the late 17th and early 18th centuries Mediterranean port cities)

Teaser

This project aims to analyze the phenomenon of multiculturalism in four premodern Mediterranean port cities. The research uses three identity markers (foodways, clothing, and language) to chart how differences in the political and physical environments affected the balance...

Summary

This project aims to analyze the phenomenon of multiculturalism in four premodern Mediterranean port cities. The research uses three identity markers (foodways, clothing, and language) to chart how differences in the political and physical environments affected the balance between marking and hybridizing identities in the port cities of Izmir, La Valletta, Livorno and Marseille. Although very different among themselves, these four cities, placed
on a maritime trading route cutting the Mediterranean from east to west, shared a highly developed cultural, ethnical, and religious pluralism. The comparative analysis adopted sheds light on the concept of pluralism in the premodern Mediterranean space, explaining how members of the same group handled coexistence following different strategies. In the project, identity is primarily intended as ‘a way of being and doing’, a way of making things in everyday life involving material practices. The concreteness of this aspect of identity leads to an act of self-positioning with respect to other individuals who are recognised as similar or different according to the way in which they do things. While inquiring into the way foreigners used material practices for channeling and expressing their cultural belonging, MedRoute highlights the role played by the political authority in determining the balance of acculturation. In fact, the adapting strategies of foreigners were deeply conditioned by the state’s attitude towards otherness. In the field of Mediterranean studies, the crucial role played by the political factor appears to have been neglected so far in favor of a greater emphasis on economic dynamics. From this perspective, MedRoute enters into the historiographical debate on the conceptual unity of the Mediterranean and proposes an interpretative model that can be fruitfully applied to the study of cultural pluralism in other border spaces. This project is deeply meaningful for nowadays society, since it addresses the problem of cultural coexistence and the role of political authority in enhancing welfare though the exploitation of the potential expressed by cultural diversity. In focusing on how political authority determined historical forms of pluralism, it reveals the ethical role of politics in assuming tolerance as a tool for fostering a more vibrant and resourceful society. In stressing the leading role played by the state and on how this is reflected by the attitude of foreigner dwellers living away from their homeland, MedRoute wishes to demonstrate the functionality of multicultural policies in enhancing civil welfare, also by the conscious use of ad-hoc policies that, ultimately, portrait pluralism as a resource for the society and not as a danger for the receiving country\'s perceived identity.

Work performed

During my first year as a Marie Curie Fellow (September 2017 – August 2018), I moved to the University of Maryland; I complete my first monograph; and then I dedicated myself to publish, research, networking, and dissemination activity.
Regarding the completion of my first monograph - Tolerance Re-Shaped in the Early-Modern Mediterranean Borderlands: Travelers, Missionaries and Proto-Journalists (1683-1724) – it was published by Routledge at the beginning of April 2018. In May 2018 I published my first article in Greek for the local history journal of the island of Naxos.
Regarding my research trips, I was first in Malta (January 2018) and then in Rome, Florence, and London (June to August, 2018).
In addition, I dedicated myself to writing my first historiographical and methodological article on MedRoute, submitted to the peer-reviewed Journal of Mediterranean Studies - University of Malta.
Alongside these occupations, I dedicated myself to learning French. In addition, I created the website http://medroute.eu/, which was linked to the ISEM-CNR website.
Finally, as regards my dissemination activity: I presented the MedRoute project for the first time during the international conference of the European Association of Urban History (EAUH) (August 2018).
In the second year of my outgoing phase (September 2018-August 2019), I have been much less mobile, and I have spent all the year at UMD, presenting my book (October 2018), organizing my workshop, writing two more article and studying French.
The crucial event of the second year of the outgoing phase was represented by my final workshop that has been a wonderful moment of discussion and confrontation of scholars at different level of their career path (PhD candidates, post-docs, professors), and it has been also an opportunity for testing the effectiveness of MedRoute model in scholarly discussions (April 2019).
On the feedback received during the workshop, I have written an article out of my workshop paper that I have submitted to the peer-review Journal of Early Modern History (Brill).
A second article was submitted in January 2019 at the peer-review journal Oriente Moderno - Brill. It is about the use of folklore in history.
Finally, as for my French learning, I have reached so far the B2 level, thanks also to an intensive individual work done with a highly specialized French instructor.

Final results

\"My work for this final year of the fellowship is currently divided into four areas. The first concerns the organization of the MedRoute final workshop to be held at the central siege of the CNR in Rome on April 29 and 30, 2020. The workshop is intended to gather scholars at different career stages and with diverse methodological and theoretical approaches, working on foreigner groups mobility, urban pluralism and identities’ expression, themes on the core of MedRoute itself. The proceedings are intended to be published either as an edited volume or as an ISEM-CNR publication.
The second area in which I am working is the \"\"Eating\' Dressing, Speaking: MedRoute at School\"\". I am developing a project for an Italian 3rd grade of \"\"scuola media\"\" (13 year-old children) of Legnano (Milan) together with the one for a Greek 6th grade of \"\"dimotiko\"\" (11 year-old children) of Athens.
The third area is concerning the writing of a forth article of the project.
The last area on which I am working on is the design of an online course on MedRoute that will be initially published on the MedRoute website. I am in the very preliminary phase, and I am willing to look for the help of an expert in digital humanities. The school project and the online course along with the exposition of my project in non-academic environments are part of a strategy in order to make the project reaching a broader audience.
What I am expecting with MedRoute it is to provide a fresher approach to the problem of cultural coexistence. In fact,I propose to look at difference as a complex of practices that give sense to daily life. This can represent a privileged way for familiarizing with what is unknown, making diversity concrete and less frightening and driving the members of a plural society to the knowledge and acceptance of otherness in its whole. Through the history of the possibility of cultural coexistence, contemporary European society could find paradigms in answering to the issues linked to the mass migrations. It can also represent a source for political actions that want to contrast the increase of populist movements in Europe that are exploiting the fear for the difference for pursuing anti-democratic and racist policies in several European states.\"

Website & more info

More info: http://medroute.eu/.