The Production of Imperial Space. Empire and Circulations (18th-20th Centuries)

Alexander van Wickeren Announcement
Location
France
Subject Fields
Colonial and Post-Colonial History / Studies, Eastern Europe History / Studies, European History / Studies, World History / Studies

Description:

The colloquium aims at bringing together different fields of recent historical investigation into the construction of imperial space. It proposes to use the concept of “circulation” as an entry point to study the imbrication of spaces, of space-producing activities, and of actors, in an imperial context. A “spatial practice” par excellence, circulation produces spaces of its own, both at its most local and at its most global scale. The workshop proposes to study the way circulation – of people, commodities, practices, knowledge and symbols – produces a multiplicity of spaces, interlocked within and between Empires. The colloquium aims at providing a platform of exchange for junior and senior researchers working on imperial history that wish to explore concepts of “space” and “circulation” in their different fields of research. The colloquium’s broad geographical and chronological focus, spanning the end of the 18th century to the middle of the 20th century, and including contributions dealing with Latin America, Africa, South and South East Asia, as well as Eastern Europe and Russia, allows to capture different imperial formations, at different stages of their evolution. This allows us to explore the articulation of the broader themes of space, circulation and empire in different ways: the colloquium explores various imagined and material construction of imperial space through the Empire’s own circulatory practices – of administrators, of knowledge and of representation – and its endeavour to control and shape circulation – through infrastructure building, and policing. (Panel 1-3) Within and beyond the empire’s spatial set up, a multiplicity of circulatory practices – movements of commodities and currencies, of pilgrims and peddlers, merchants and travelers all contribute to the constitution of parallel spaces at the regional, cross border and transimperial scale. (Panel 4-6).

 

Program:

Thursday, November 23, 2017

09:30 • Welcoming the Participants and Registration

10:00-10:30 • Introduction

10:30-12:00 • PANEL 1

Imaginations of Spaces: Explorations and Discourses in an Imperial Setting - Discussant: Jakob VOGEL (Sciences Po-Centre d'Histoire de Sciences Po)

KATHERINE PARKER (Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps London) | “Putting Space to Paper. The Production of the Pacific in the Eighteenth Century”

DELPHINE FROMENT (École normale supérieur Ulm) | “A Scramble for Kilimanjaro? Imperial Rivalries and Production of Space in East Africa at the end fo the 19th century”

MARTA GRZECHNIK (University of Gdánsk) | “Aspirations of an Imperial Space. The Colonial Discourse of the Maritime and Colonial League in Interwar Poland”

12:00-13:30 • LUNCH BREAK

13:30-15:00 • PANEL 2

From Railway to Television: Imperial Space and Infrastructure -Discussant: Vidhya RAVEENDRANATHAN (University of Göttingen/Centre for Modern Indian Studies)

MATTHEW SCOTT (Newcastle University) | “Visions of Circulation. Continental Imperial Expan­sion and the Construction of Transcontinental Railway Systems, c. 1850-1930”

LIMIN TEH (Leiden University) | “The Company Town as Imperial Space”

FLORA LOSCH (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales Paris) | “Broadcast and Rule: The Circulation of Audiovisual Knowledge and Technologies and the De/Re-composition of the Imperial Space in West Africa”

15:00-15:30 • COFFEE BREAK

15:30-17:00 • PANEL 3

Ordering Mobilities within Imperial Spaces - Discussant: Sabine DULLIN (Sciences Po-Centre d'Histoire de Sciences Po)

HUW J. DAVIES (King’s College London) | “Networks of Knowledge Exchange and Information Circulations in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century British Military Imperialism”

ZHANNA POPOVA (International Institute of Social History Amsterdam) | “Exile to Siberia as Imperial Practice, 1870s-1900s”

TOM MENGER (University of Cologne) | “‘Ordinary’ Colonial Officers in German East Africa as Pawns and Producers of Imperial Space and Imperial Circulations, ca. 1890-1914”

20:00 • EVENING ACTIVITIES

 

Friday, November 24, 2017

09:30-11:00 • PANEL 4

Flows of commodities and currencies: Imperial Economic Spaces - Discussant: Claude MARKOVITS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique-Centre d'Études de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud)

JÉSUS BOHORQUEZ BARRERA (University of Lisbon) | “Entangled Geographies of the Iberian Empires in South America (1750-1800)”

VARSHA PATEL (University of Kassel) | “Reconfiguring Routes of Salt along the British Indian Frontier of Maritime Saurāshtra, Western India 1910-1932”

ADITYA RAMESH (School of Oriental and African Studies, London) | “Circulating Commodities, Shifting Sovereignties: Rice across the Bay of Bengal c. 1900-1947”

11:00-11:30 • COFFEE BREAK

11:30-13:00 • PANEL 5

Trajectories and experiences of circulating people: Empire’s multilayered space - Discussant: David DO PAÇO (Sciences Po-Centre d'Histoire de Sciences PO)

METIN ATMACA (Social Sciences University of Ankara) | “An Imperial Social Space with Many Layers. Reconfiguration of the Ottoman-Iranian Frontier by Khaliddiya Sufi Network”

MARTIN SCHALLER (University of St. Andrews) | “Travellers Habsburg Empire – One Imperial Space or Different Spaces? Ca. 1815-1860s”

ANDREI DAN SORESCU (University College London) | “The Peddler, the Peasant and the Portrait of the Czar. Spatial Layers of Empire in fin-de-siècle Romania “

13:00-14:00 • LUNCH BREAK

14:00-15:30 • PANEL 6

Transimperial spaces: places on the move and nodes of circulation - Discussant: Ulrike LINDNER (University of Cologne)

JUSTINE COUSIN (Paris IV) | “Colonial Seafarers creating a Trans-imperial Space. British Empire and Steamship Labour Circulations (1850-1950)”

FLORIAN WAGNER (University of Erfurt) | “The International Colonial Institute and the Creation of a Transimperial Space of Colonial Science (1890s-1920s)”

15:30-16:00 • COFFEE BREAK

16:00-17:00 • FINAL ROUNDTABLE

 

Scientific and Funding Partners:

Centre d'Histoire de Sciences Po

École doctorale de Sciences Po

Centre interdisciplinaire d'études et de recherches sur l'Allemagne

University of Cologne

 

Location:

Salle du Traité

Centre d'Histoire de Sciences Po

56 rue Jacob

75006 Paris

France

 

Contact Information

Camille BUAT | Sciences Po-Centre d'Histoire de Sciences Po/University of Göttingen

Aude-Cécile MONNOT | Sciences Po-Centre d'Histoire de Sciences PO

Alexander VAN WICKEREN | University of Cologne/Sciences Po-Centre d'Histoire de Sciences Po

 

Contact Email
colloquium.circulation@gmail.com