Second Edition, DAY 1 - Introduction: The Imagined Mediterranean

The Mediterranean goes beyond the confines of simple physical fact. Can we view the Med as an imagined space? And what role will perception play in many of the arguments that will be presented throughout the summer school? What is the Mediterranean to most of us: is it home, is it the home we are running away from or the home we are longing to return to? Is it a place we leave to transform ourselves and come back to as renewed bodies, via pilgrimage, tourism or migration? (Nadja Dumann, Stefano Malatesta and Diogini Albera will discuss these matters in detail). Ultimately, how do we ascribe meaning to the world around us?

The meaning that individuals and groups give to space and place provides an interesting dynamic. Studying these spaces allows us to gain insight into the different people’s world views and the sharing of spaces (or not!) leads to the creation of communities, many of which are also transient and at times in conflict (Maria Pisani and Dionigi Albera will speak about this and some of the activists too from the perspective of environment, tourism and migration). 

The sea has provided ample opportunities for trade by legal or illegal means, throughout history. Corsairs, pirates, and many traders have used the sea currents and central Mediterranean islands like Lampedusa, Malta, Sicily and Sardegna as safe harbours connecting the western to the eastern Mediterranean as well as north Africa to Europe…..a special axis that will most likely dominate much of our discussions here this week. In the words of David Abulafia (2011):

“Mediterranean history can mean many things. (T)his book is a history of the Mediterranean Sea, rather than a history of the lands around it; more particularly, it is a history of the people who crossed the sea and lived close by to its shores in ports and on islands. My theme is the process by which the Mediterranean became in varying degrees integrated into a single commercial, cultural and even (under the Romans) political zone, and how these periods of integration ended with sometimes violent disintegration, whether through warfare or plague”.

 These words are timeless, and could well apply to our contemporary reality. 

Looking towards tourism will combine many of the abovementioned strands to provide a context to discuss the socio-economic and socio-environmental impact of such movement of people and goods on local and environmental realities. Local(ised) consumption of the tourism product is leaving its mark on more sensitive ecologies (including human ecologies). The material culture we carry with us and leave behind, speaks of the stories of things-changing-hands. Of routes and journeys, of meaning and of emotion where value is ascribed to things and things are used to transact and build connections and relations via reciprocal exchange. This aspect of material culture and the transience it embodies is also of interest to Camille Faucourt’s session. Many of these strands will flow through the research that will be presented in Giovanna Di Matteo’s session discussing the research presented by our doctoral researchers here. 

(Except from Rachel Radmillli's Introduction to the summer school, Lampedusa, 15th September 2021)