Malte Fuhrmann Esther Möller (Sektionsleitung)

Das (Post-)Osmanische Mittelmeer: Deutungskämpfe über Diversität zwischen imperialen Bestrebungen und lokalen Behauptungen, 1860–1960

Abstract

Osmanismus, (Pan-) Arabischer Nationalismus, Zionismus, Phönizianismus, die griechische megali idea…die Vielfalt der Deutungsdebatten um politische, soziale und kulturelle Ordnungsmodelle im östlichen Mittelmeerraum im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert ist beeindruckend. Diese Sektion hat zum Ziel, die Varietät imperialer und postimperialer Konzepte in diesem Raum und zwischen Krimkrieg und Suezkrise zu diskutieren. Der Fokus liegt auf Akteuren, die sich intellektuelle Kriterien und Praktiken von Diversität oder von Exklusivität Gegner aneigneten. Dies konnte in Momente gelungener Aushandlung von Diversität ebenso resultieren wie in solche katastrophaler Entflechtung. Mithilfe des Ansatzes der „Reflexive Area Studies“ möchte die Sektion den Dialog zwischen den oft voneinander getrennten „Area Studies“ und anderen Disziplinen fördern.

Malte Fuhrmann (Berlin)
Mediterranean Cosmopolitanism: Empty Construct or Model for the 21st Century?

The paper will deal with the question of Mediterranean cosmopolitanism in the Eastern Mediterranean in the late 19th century. It will argue that nineteenth century residents of the region did not claim to enjoy a colorblind, egalitarian socio-political order. Instead, they perceived the interconnectedness and diversity of their region as its major assets. Only once nationalism gained discursive hegemony did its opponents conflate cosmopolitanism with imperialism in order to eradicate the former.

Eyal Ginio (Jerusalem)
Boycott and Exclusion: The Retracing of Communal Borders in Eastern Thrace following the Balkan Wars

This paper discusses Eastern Thrace in general, and the locality of Dimetoka (nowadays Didymoteicho), in particular, as sites of sequential ethnic cleansing during the Balkan Wars (1912-13) and in their aftermath. It aims to present and discuss the events that took place in this area by placing them in the context of the macro- and micro-historical transformation triggered by the Balkan Wars. The presentation contextualizes the exclusion of non-Muslims as part of the Ottoman embracing of the ideal of the national community, increasingly defined by religion and ethnic origins, and the retracing of communal borders that occurred following the Ottoman defeat in the Balkan Wars.

Jasmin Daam (Kassel)
Mapping Nations: History, Modernity, and Space in Mediterranean Tourism, 1920s–1930s

During the 1920s and 1930s, tourist mobility in the Mediterranean created a space of communication allowing local actors to present their demands to mostly European tourists. It will be argued that in Mandate Palestine, the narrative patterns of “heritage” and “modernity” gained a particular relevance, as Zionist, European, and Palestinian tour agencies and guides confronted visitors with competing visions of Palestine’s socio-spatial order. The analysis of narratives, tourism advertisement strategies, and tour itineraries suggests that the emerging segregated tourist spaces ultimately benefitted the Zionist project and relegated Palestinian claims to the past.

Raed Bader (Ramallah)
The Afro-Palestinian Community of Jerusalem: Challenges of Integration in a Transforming World (1860–1960)

This paper will zoom in on the Afro-Palestinian community of Jerusalem between 1860 and 1960. Raed Bader will analyse how, in the second half of the 19th century, Jerusalem became open to foreign consulates and minorities from across the Mediterranean. While the Holy City absorbed the new sects and minorities, even those who first came only temporarily, the example of the African community of Jerusalem demonstrates that political and social integration in a period of radical transformation was a great challenge for both sides.

Esther Möller (Mainz)
Claiming Arab Sovereignty in the Mediterranean. Egyptian and Lebanese Relief in the Period of Decolonization

This paper will deal with Arab claims of sovereignty in the context of decolonization. By focussing on Egypt and Lebanon and their humanitarian relief activities from the 1940s to the 1960s, it will argue that by insisting on their roles not of beneficiaries, but of donors of help to others, both states and their respective societies affirmed their own political and cultural understandings of sovereignty in the Eastern Mediterranean. While Lebanese actors rather stressed the link with Western humanitarian and political institutions, the Egyptians emphasized their autonomy towards the West, but in close connection to the regional Arab context.